While I believe that NMR technique will add into protein-smal molecules interaction studies, this sound like prime rate BS, imho.
New NMR-based Technology to Shorten Drug Discovery Chemistry From Years to Weeks
Triad Therapeutics Reports Proof of Principle of IOPE(TM) Proprietary Drug
Discovery Platform at BioPartnering Europe Conference
LONDON, Oct. 16 /PRNewswire/ -- Triad Therapeutics, Inc., introduced
IOPE(TM) today, its proprietary drug discovery platform guided by NMR
spectroscopy, which is expected to shorten the drug discovery process of
generating potent and specific lead compounds from 2-5 years to less than
2 months. The Company reported at the BioPartnering Europe Conference that
proof of principle has been achieved for IOPE seven months ahead of schedule.
"The number of drug targets in the human genome is expected to increase
from about 500 to 5000 as the result of genomics research. Targets, however,
do not cure disease -- drugs do," said Stephen M. Coutts, Ph.D., President of
Triad Therapeutics. "Triad's IOPE platform technology allows us to accelerate
drug discovery for existing and post-genomics targets. With IOPE, we can
design drug collections for entire families of genes even before a disease
link with a particular gene is discovered. Then as new gene targets are
identified, the appropriate drug candidates at Triad can be screened to
produce a highly potent and specific drug lead within a matter of weeks -- not
the years associated with current drug discovery technologies."
IOPE, or Integrated Object-Oriented PharmacoEngineering, employs the
proven technology of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to quickly
gather structural information on key gene families and the proteins they
encode. The structural data are used to guide the construction of highly
focused compound collections that are biased against those gene families. By
screening new targets in the appropriate gene families against the biased
compound collections, the Company expects to produce highly potent and
specific leads within weeks after being presented a new target. Triad
recently used IOPE to produce several nanomolar hits (between 25 and 100 nM)
from a new drug scaffold by synthesizing a collection of fewer than
200 compounds.
"Because IOPE uses an object-oriented approach to assemble chemical
modules like building blocks into drug compounds," Dr. Coutts explained, "our
collections have the highly desirable feature of being reusable. They can be
used again and again for screening as new disease targets are discovered.
This is a very different approach from traditional drug discovery in which
drug design starts only after the target is identified."
Triad Therapeutics was founded in 1998 by Dr. Coutts, Daniel Sem, Ph.D.,
as well as John Freund of Skyline Ventures, and completed its first round of
financing in mid-1999. The Company recently initiated its Series B round of
financing.
"Our business strategy going forward is of a dual nature," said
Dr. Coutts. "We will not only provide lead compounds to customers within the
biotech and pharmaceutical arena, but will also develop our own leads into
clinical candidates."
Triad Therapeutics, Inc., headquartered in San Diego, California, is a
biopharmaceutical company focused on rapidly generating highly potent and
specific drug candidates through the use of IOPE(TM) (Integrated
Object-Oriented PharmacoEngineering), a proprietary, structure-based discovery
platform. Triad is leveraging genomics to speed drug discovery by
constructing highly focused collections of small molecule inhibitors that are
specific for key gene families traditionally rich in drug targets. As part of
a dual business strategy, Triad will provide high-affinity, nanomolar chemical
lead compounds to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Triad will
also develop its own leads into clinical candidates.
For more information on Triad Therapeutics, Inc., please visit our website
at triadthera.com.
IOPE(TM) is a trademark of Triad Therapeutics, Inc. |
