Astex Therapeutics, the UK-based biotechnology company developing targeted therapies for oncology and virology, announced that it has achieved multiple early milestones in its fragment-based drug discovery collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline which commenced in November 2009. Total milestone payments received under the collaboration have now reached £5.9 million.

The milestones relate to the application of Astex’s Pyramid fragment based screening platform, against a number of molecular targets of interest to GSK. Following the identification of validated fragment hits, the joint project teams prioritise fragments to be taken into lead optimization with the intention of selecting clinical development candidates for further development by GSK.

Commenting on the achievement of the early milestones, Dr Harren Jhoti, Astex’s chief executive officer said, “We are delighted to have achieved these initial milestones within 18 months of beginning our collaboration with GSK. This achievement is testament, not only to the power of Astex’s technology to rapidly deliver novel chemical start points against challenging disease targets, but is also a reflection of how well the Astex-GSK joint project teams are working together in the collaboration.

Astex is a UK-based biotechnology company that discovers and develops novel small molecule therapeutics.