Aurora Biosciences Announces Therapeutic Drug Discovery Alliance With The Hereditary Disease Foundation
SAN DIEGO, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Aurora Biosciences Corporation (Nasdaq: ABSC - news) today announced that it has entered into a therapeutic drug discovery alliance with the Hereditary Disease Foundation, a non-profit, basic science organization dedicated to the cure of genetic disease. The focus of this alliance is to identify novel therapeutics for the treatment of Huntington's disease.
Under the alliance, Aurora will employ its proprietary green fluorescent protein (GFP) technology and beta-lactamase reporter technology to develop cell-based and biochemical screening assays and will conduct ultra-high throughput drug screening using Aurora's instrumentation and a library of about 500,000 compounds. Aurora will then pharmacologically profile any active compounds derived from these screens and collaborate with academic researchers to test for efficacy in animal models.
``The goal of our drug discovery collaboration with the Hereditary Disease Foundation is to apply Aurora's unique capabilities to advance the discovery of new medicines to treat Huntington's disease,'' said Michael Dunn, Aurora's vice president, business development. ``This is another example of Aurora taking its leading and diverse discovery technologies further downstream into the heart of drug discovery.''
``We are confident in Aurora's ability to explore new avenues that could lead to an effective treatment in the area of Huntington's disease,'' commented Dr. Ethan Signer, executive director of the Cure Huntington's Disease Initiative of the Hereditary Disease Foundation. ``It is our hope that Aurora's cutting-edge technologies and expertise will further our scientific knowledge not only of this disease but of other related genetic and neurological disorders.''
``Although the genetics underlying Huntington's disease and other expanded polyglutamine disorders is well documented, the cellular and molecular biology of these diseases is just beginning to be grasped,'' said Dr. Brian Pollok, Aurora's senior director, discovery biology. ``Fortunately, our assay technologies enable us to conduct an innovative and rigorous drug discovery program in this field, even at this early stage of scientific understanding.''
Huntington's disease is an inherited disorder caused by a genetic mutation on the fourth chromosome. It is as prevalent as cystic fibrosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), affecting approximately 35,000 to 50,000 people in the United States, with another 175,000 to 250,000 people at risk. Because this disease is an autosomal dominant disorder, each child, male or female, of a parent with Huntington's disease has a 50% chance of inheriting the illness. The mutation on the fourth chromosome results in the death of vital nerve cells in a region of the brain known as the basal ganglia. Symptoms usually begin to appear in early to mid-adulthood and include involuntary movements of parts of the body, loss of coordination, cognitive difficulties and emotional problems such as suicidal depression. It can strike as early as 2 years of age and as late as 80 years. Invariably fatal, it progresses irrevocably without remission for 15 to 20 years until death.
Aurora Biosciences is seeking to identify compounds that can modify the structure or the function of the protein involved in this incurable and devastating illness. These new therapeutics are quite likely to be effective in treating other expanded polyglutamine disorders, and potentially useful in treating illnesses such as Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia and Lou Gehrig's disease.
Since its inception in 1968, the Hereditary Disease Foundation has provided support for basic and applied scientific research aimed at uncovering the causes of Huntington's disease and related genetic and neurological disorders. The Hereditary Disease Foundation initiated and coordinated the decade-long Collaborative Search that identified and cloned the gene for Huntington's disease in 1993. In 1997, it formed the Cure Huntington's Disease Initiative to accelerate progress toward a cure by focusing on finding and bringing potential drugs from research to therapy. Further information can be found on the Foundation's web page at hdfoundation.org.
Aurora designs, develops and commercializes advanced drug discovery technologies, services and systems to accelerate the discovery of new medicines. The Company's core technologies include a broad portfolio of proprietary fluorescence assay technologies, including its GeneBLAzer(TM) and VIPR(TM) technologies, its functional genomics GenomeScreen(TM) program, its automated master compound store, the AMCS, and its ultra-high throughput screening system (UHTSS(TM) Platform) and subsystems to miniaturize and automate drug screening and profiling assays derived from those technologies. Aurora technologies have been commercially validated by over 15 major life sciences companies and research organizations, including American Home Products, Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Eli Lilly & Co., Families of SMA, Glaxo Wellcome, Genentech, Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Merck & Co., Inc., NV Organon Laboratories, Pfizer, Inc., and Warner-Lambert Company, in the form of commercialization agreements for discovery services, licenses or systems. For additional information on Aurora's services and products, please contact Sales and Marketing via email at marcom@aurorabio.com.
Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical are ``forward-looking'' statements which involve a high degree of technological and competitive risks and uncertainties that exist in the Company's operations and business environment. Such forward-looking statements include statements regarding the likelihood of successfully identifying hit compounds and developing drugs for the treatment of Huntington's disease. Such statements are only predictions and the Company's actual events or results may differ materially from those projected in such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to differences include risks associated with the Company's ability to develop assays for the Hereditary Disease Foundation or to identify potential leads through the use of such assays, new and uncertain technology, dependence on patents and proprietary rights and dependence on pharmaceutical and biotechnology. These factors and others are more fully described in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K/A for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1999, and subsequent Forms 10-Q, as filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. For additional corporate information, visit the Aurora website at aurorabio.com.
GeneBLAzer(TM), GenomeScreen(TM), UHTSS(TM) and VIPR(TM) are trademarks of Aurora Biosciences
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SOURCE: Aurora Biosciences Corporation |
