Structural GenomiX Inc (SGX) has signed a collaboration agreement with Aventis Pharmaceuticals Inc to rapidly identify promising lead compounds for a designated drug target set. Using its highly automated structure solution platform, which includes access to its own customized beamline facility at the Advanced Photon Source, SGX will solve the structures of up to 100 compounds co-crystallized with their drug target.

Under the agreement, Aventis will provide high-throughput (HT) screened compounds selected against the human drug target. SGX will co-crystallize the compounds against the target set and provide Aventis with structural and compound-target binding information using SGX's HT co-crystal structure determination platform. The objective is to provide structural information in the time frame relevant to pharmaceutical drug discovery.

"By having the ability to view both biological and chemical space via these large-scale co-crystallization experiments, we are entering into a new frontier between biology and chemistry," commented Alan Collis, head of Chemistry in the U.S. for Aventis. "The 3-dimensional data generated by SGX will identify high-quality leads and help drive the series toward candidate compounds for clinical development."