SAN DIEGO, April 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Ambit Biosciences Corporation, a privately held drug discovery and development company, today announced a research collaboration agreement with AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP. The research collaboration, will utilize Ambit's ProteomeScan(TM), the Company's proprietary chemistry-directed discovery platform, to identify and isolate the protein targets of small molecules provided by AstraZeneca.
``We are pleased to be working with AstraZeneca to aid in the identification of CNS protein targets modulated by their small molecule lead compounds,'' said M. Scott Salka, the Company's Chief Executive Officer. ``Our proprietary ProteomeScan platform enables the parallel interrogation of large collections of human proteins for the discovery of those that bind to biologically active molecules. This relationship with AstraZeneca represents an important validation of our platform and serves as an initial step in broadening the commercialization of our discovery engine.''
Salka added, ``Our target discoveries are driven by observation rather than hypothesis. There is a tremendous number of biologically active molecules, with unidentified mechanisms of action, and it becomes increasingly important to understand mechanism in order to optimize promising compounds. Ambit is committed to working closely with companies, such as AstraZeneca to elucidate such mechanisms of action.''
ProteomeScan(TM), Ambit Biosciences's high-throughput, chemistry-directed discovery technology, eliminates the difficult and resource-draining target discovery steps that slow conventional genomics- and proteomics-based drug discovery efforts. Ambit discovers novel drug targets by employing molecules that exert important biological effects through unknown mechanisms. This is accomplished by directly screening, in a parallel, efficient and highly scalable manner, tens of thousands of proteins for their ability to bind biologically active small molecules, peptides or proteins.
About Ambit Biosciences Corporation
Ambit Biosciences Corporation is a private, San Diego-based corporation whose mission is to discover the molecular identities of therapeutically relevant drug targets and develop successful new drugs that modulate the activity of these targets for the treatment of human disease. Using its proprietary ProteomeScan(TM) technologies, Ambit intends to identify and patent the protein targets of small molecules and peptides with therapeutically and commercially important pharmacological or biological activities, but unknown mechanisms of action.
M. Scott Salka
Chief Executive Officer
Ambit Biosciences
858-334-2101 |
