C4X makes progress with drug discovery 'engine'

Drug discovery company C4X Discovery Holdings updated the market on its ‘Drug Discovery Engine’ and portfolio progress on Tuesday.

The AIM-traded company said it continued to make progress towards its aim of becoming the “world's most productive” drug discovery engine by exploiting cutting-edge technologies to design and create best-in-class small-molecule candidates targeting a range of high value therapeutic areas.

It said its key drug discovery programmes in addiction and inflammation had “advanced”, and its Taxonomy3 DNA-based target discovery technology was said to be producing novel target data in a number of commercially valuable disease areas.

C4X said those targets could be addressed through its drug design platform, including our Conformetrix and Molplex chemistry technologies, and the board was discussions with a “number of potential” pharmaceutical partners which it anticipated would result in a deal in line with previously-announced expectations.

“We continue to develop the data package around our most advanced drug candidate, an Orexin-1 antagonist aimed at treating addiction, and have recently completed a study in cocaine-induced brain dopamine elevation,” said CEO Dr Clive Dix.

“Combined with our already compelling preclinical data package around nicotine addiction, we are confident that our lead programme represents a highly attractive prospect for partnering with pharma and the initial discussions are progressing as we had hoped.

Dr Dix said the company was also “increasingly seeing” the power of the firm’s drug discovery engine with “exciting” new targets identified in inflammation and neurodegenerative diseases.

“These open new opportunities to develop valuable new discovery programmes and early-stage revenue-generating deals with the pharmaceutical industry.”