Wednesday 29 September 2010

KINAXO and Daiichi-Sankyo enter collaboration

KINAXO Biotechnologies GmbH and Daiichi Sankyo Company Limited entered a long-term partnership in cancer research. Under the agreement, Daiichi Sankyo will employ KINAXO’s technology platform to support the development of Daiichi Sankyo’s targeted cancer drugs. This will involve KINAXO applying its proprietary chemical proteomics technologies Cellular Target Profiling and KinAffinity® as well as its phosphoproteomics technology PhosphoScout within various research programmes pursued at Daiichi Sankyo. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
Cellular Target Profiling and KinAffinity use a combination of proprietary chemical proteomics and quantitative mass spectrometry technologies to identify a small molecule’s native cellular targets from biological samples.

PhosphoScout is a global, quantitative phosphoproteomics service tailored to dissect cellular signal transduction pathways and their response to drug treatment. PhosphoScout is applicable to both small molecules and antibodies.

Axel Ullrich, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried and KINAXO Board member commented: “To promote innovation in cancer therapy we need to better understand how targeted drugs interfere with de-regulated signaling in human malignancies. To this end, KINAXO has established a unique technology platform that allows comprehensive analysis of cancer signal transduction processes and their response to drug treatment. I am convinced that these innovative technologies will significantly contribute to the development of tomorrow’s cancer therapeutics.”

Andreas Jenne, KINAXO’s CEO added: “We are excited and pleased to partner with Daiichi Sankyo to support their endeavour in developing novel medicines for cancer patients.”

KINAXO

Daiichi Sankyo