Merck Serono, a division of Merck, has announced a cooperation agreement with the Lead Discovery Center (LDC), a small molecule drug discovery spin-off of Max Planck Innovation, to promote the discovery of kinase inhibitors as potential cancer treatments.
The collaboration is supported by the German Ministry of Education and Research under the nation's BioPharma initiative to strengthen the pharmaceutical industry in Germany.
The agreement will centre on using an innovative kinase technology platform originating from the Chemical Genomics Centre of the Max Planck Society.
Merck Serono and the LDC aim to identify inhibitory compounds against at least one undisclosed kinase target and advance them through the drug discovery process in the hope of developing pharmaceutical lead compounds.
Kinases are key components of biochemical signalling pathways that control cellular growth, metabolism and differentiation, which hold strong potential as a drug target for many diseases especially in oncology.
SOURCE:Pharmaceutical-technology
