X-Chem, AstraZeneca Expand Drug Discovery Pact

X-Chem, Inc. and AstraZeneca have entered into an expanded global drug discovery collaboration across all of AZ’s therapeutic areas and multiple target classes. AstraZeneca recently licensed three drug discovery programs from a previous collaboration with X-Chem, directed at an oncology protein-protein interaction (PPI) target, a respiratory/inflammation PPI target, and an antibacterial target. AstraZeneca extended the initial research collaboration to five years and X-Chem will conduct drug discovery on at least 10 therapeutic targets per year.

X-Chem will receive R&D funding and for each program licensed by AstraZeneca is eligible for pre-clinical, clinical and sales milestones of as much as $26 million. X-Chem will also receive royalties successfully commercialized drugs that results from the program.

“X-Chem is revolutionizing the discovery of small molecule drugs. Our discovery engine is being successfully applied to a full spectrum of targets in multiple therapeutic areas,” said Rick Wagner, Ph.D., chief executive officer of X-Chem. “Our existing collaboration with AstraZeneca has demonstrated the superior performance of the X-Chem platform with its high rate of discovery of novel leads to challenging targets, but also its unparalleled speed and efficiency. This expanded agreement allows us to work together on new, exciting therapeutic programs with the potential to treat a broad array of diseases and conditions with significant unmet medical needs.”

“X-Chem and AstraZeneca have quickly built a strong relationship delivering outcomes that have exceeded our expectations. We are now committing to a longer-term and broader collaboration that we believe will continue adding value to our core therapeutic portfolio of small molecule drug development programs,” said Steve Rees, vice president of Discovery Sciences, AstraZeneca. “The novel chemical series discovered by X-Chem have so far enabled three of our therapeutic programs and are continuing to progress within AstraZeneca. We view the X-Chem platform as an important and strategic part of our small molecule discovery strategy.”