Beactica scientists describe strategies for fragment-based drug discovery in two publications in Journal of Medicinal Chemistry

Beactica, the leading Swedish fragment-based drug discovery company, today announced the publication of two key papers based on in-house research in the field-leading Journal of Medicinal Chemistry*. The papers present methodological advances in SPR biosensor-based drug discovery targeting structurally dynamic proteins, a significant challenge for the pharmaceutical industry, that have been implemented in Beactica’s discovery platform.

The first paper describes the identification of novel chemical scaffolds for inhibition of wild-type and drug-resistant HIV-1 reverse transcriptase by SPR-based fragment screening. The study demonstrates that an efficient experimental design can enable the identification of molecular fragments with desired characteristics and a defined mode of action – also for challenging targets. The second paper outlines concepts for an improved understanding of the druggability of target proteins during fragment-based lead generation. The proprietary methodology developed on the basis of the findings enables an improved evaluation and prioritization of screening hits.

The research is a result of an international collaboration between Beactica, IOTA Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Cambridge, UK, and scientists at Uppsala University, Sweden.

For additional information please contact Dr Per Källblad, Beactica CEO, +46 18 560880.

* Publication references

• 
Geitmann et al., Identification of a novel scaffold for allosteric inhibition of wild type and drug resistant HIV-1 reverse transcriptase by fragment library screening. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 2011, 54:699–708 (DOI: 10.1021/jm1010513).
• Brandt et al., Deconstruction of non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 for exploration of the optimization landscape of fragments. Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, 2011, 54:709–18 (DOI: 10.1021/jm101052g).

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