Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of small molecule therapeutics, has initiated drug discovery programme for the survivin pathway, an important and intractable cancer pathway. Survivin is over-expressed in multiple tumour types including breast, lung, prostate, pancreatic and colon. Additionally, survivin is cancer selective as it is broadly expressed in most tumour types but undetectable in most normal adult cells.

"The survivin pathway is recognized as a critical but elusive pathway for cancer therapeutics, because of its lack of enzymatic function," stated David Bol, vice president of pharmaceutical development at Avalon. "The survivin pathway intersects cellular networks critical for cancer cell function; including cell death, cell growth, and drug and radiation resistance."

"Avalon is especially well-suited to undertake a discovery programme for this intractable cancer pathway," stated Kenneth C. Carter, Ph.D., president and CEO of Avalon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. "Our AvalonRx technology identifies potential therapeutics based upon their ability to modulate pathways or targets within living cells. As an example, we use RNAi technologies to knockdown the key nodes in these 'undruggable' pathways and mine the resulting genomic response to identify a gene expression signature to screen for small molecules that elicit a similar response."

Avalon's pipeline now includes AVN944, an IMPDH inhibitor in phase I clinical trials for haematological malignancies, Beta-catenin and Aurora pathway inhibitor programs, which are in late-stage lead candidate optimization, and the new discovery program for survivin. Avalon's depth and breadth of pipeline affords the company the option to selectively develop and/or partner these programmes.

AvalonRx is a comprehensive, innovative and proprietary suite of technologies based upon large-scale gene expression analysis. This platform facilitates drug discovery by expanding the range of therapeutic targets for drug intervention, including targets and target pathways frequently considered intractable using conventional HTS approaches, allows more informed decisions about which compounds to advance towards clinical trials, and facilitates drug development through identification of biomarkers of efficacy that can stratify patients or provide early indicators of response.