Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc (BIPI) and Structural GenomiX Inc (SGX) announced a two-year collaboration agreement to utilize SGX's structure-directed drug discovery technologies to support BIPI's lead optimization activities. This newly formed partnership will leverage SGX's automated, high-throughput protein structure determination platform to accelerate the discovery of optimized leads and aid in the identification of improved drug candidates.

Using its large-scale gene-to-structure technology platform and comprehensive bioinformatics capabilities, SGX will solve the 3-dimensional structure of BIPI identified drug targets. Once the initial 3-D structure of a protein has been solved, SGX scientists will rapidly generate co-crystal data to show how potential drug leads interact with the protein. Through the rapid iterative determination of co-crystal structures, SGX and BIPI scientists will gain critical insights on how leads can be improved on an accelerated timeframe. The ultimate goal of the collaboration is to accelerate the discovery of novel medicines to treat major diseases and disorders.

"SGX has developed the ability both to solve initial protein structures quickly and then to elucidate the 3-D interaction between compounds and drug targets in a high-throughput manner that is well matched to the medicinal chemistry workflow," said Dr. Peter Mueller, Senior Vice President for Research and Development, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. "Up until now, the process of solving protein structures has been too slow and unpredictable to shorten the timeline reliably for lead generation and optimization. SGX has found a fast and efficient way to generate these protein structures. Partnering with SGX will enhance our own abilities to discover drug candidates."

"We look forward to a long and rewarding partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and are confident we can achieve our mutual goals of rapidly moving targets through the lead discovery process using our structure-based platform," said Tim Harris, SGX's President and CEO. "This collaboration further validates our technological capabilities in a competitive environment and is an important step for us in building a successful company."