Cancer Research Horizons and Newcastle University extend alliance with Astex

Cancer Research Horizons – Cancer Research UK’s newly launched innovation engine – and Newcastle University have announced an extension to their strategic drug discovery alliance with Astex Pharmaceuticals (Astex).

The agreement will extend the current alliance between the three parties by a further five years and will continue to focus on the discovery of potential new cancer drugs with associated biomarkers.

If completed, the extension will result in a continuous strategic drug discovery alliance spanning 15 years and, cumulatively, will be one of Cancer Research UK’s longest running translational collaborations with a relationship spanning nearly 20 years.

Under the terms of the agreement, Astex retains the right to an exclusive worldwide licence to take the most promising projects forward into pre-clinical and clinical drug development, with Cancer Research Horizons and Newcastle University eligible to receive milestone and royalty payments on any compounds that make it into clinical development and onto the market.

Multiple projects across target validation and early-stage hit-identification are already included in the existing alliance portfolio, with projects progressing towards the more advanced stages of pre-clinical development.

This includes the identification of an MDM2-p53 antagonist compound (ASTX295) which has entered clinical evaluation.

The parties’ first project collaboration was set up in 2004 to evaluate the potential utility of Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptor (FGFR) inhibitors to treat certain cancers, with a later collaboration among the parties focused on the discovery of more selective FGFR inhibitors.

Astex subsequently entered into a drug discovery collaboration and licence agreement on FGFR inhibitors with Janssen – a pharmaceutical arm of Johnson & Johnson – which resulted in the identification of Balversa (erdafitinib), approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2019 for the treatment of patients for the treatment of adults with locally advanced or metastatic a who carry FGFR alterations.

“The extension of this alliance is a testament to the long-running success of the efforts of all three partners over nearly 20 years of existing collaboration,” said Dr Iain Foulkes, chief executive officer of Cancer Research Horizon

Steve Wedge, chief scientific officer at Cancer Research Horizons and Professor of Stratified Cancer Medicine Discovery at Newcastle University, added: "This major academic-industry collaboration has had genuine success, and I am delighted to see it continue to build on the impressive track record of all partners.”