Vernalis and Servier achieve Research Milestone as BCL-2 inhibitor drug candidate enters Phase I

On June 19, 2014 Vernalis and Servier reported the achievement of a milestone following the treatment of the first patient in a Servier sponsored Phase I trial with a promising new drug candidate, a selectiveBCL-2 inhibitor identified through their joint oncology drug discovery collaboration (Press release, Servier, JUN 19, 2014, View Source [SID:1234508825]).

Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:

Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing

                  Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!

This BCL-2 selective inhibitor is the first drug candidate stemming from an on-going collaboration between Vernalis and Servier aimed at discovering anticancer drug candidates selective for individual BCL-2 family members.

Ian Garland, CEO of Vernalis commented: "We are delighted that this new BCL-2 inhibitor candidate has now entered Phase I trials and look forward to further success from our broad, strategic collaboration with Servier."

Jean-Pierre Abastado, Director of the Center of Therapeutic Innovation in Oncology at Servier, said: "Our experience with Vernalis shows that small molecules tailored against specific targets can have very high therapeutic potential. This success was achieved through a comprehensive chemistry and biology research program with our teams identifying and characterizing this promising BCL-2 inhibitor. This new compound further extends Servier’s portfolio beyond kinase inhibitors, HDAC inhibitors and immunotherapeutic products."

About BCL-2 target:

Proteins of the BCL-2 family are crucial regulators of apoptosis. Deregulations of this protein family play a major role in the aberrant survival of tumour cells. Within this protein family, BCL-2 belongs to the pro-survival members and is often overexpressed in tumour cells. Pro-survival BCL-2 family members have been recognized as attractive therapeutic targets in oncology for more than twenty years but drug discovery research on this class of target is particularly challenging and requires innovative chemistry supported by structural biology.