Selcia has announced the successful completion of a drug-discovery project with Exonhit Therapeutics, using Selcia's fragment-screening technology.
Novel and weak affinity hits were identified from Selcia's fragment library, using its proprietary Cefrag technique.
Exonhit Therapeutics is now advancing the viable hits for optimisation.
'This further validates Cefrag's ability to identify fragments as viable hits at the outset of a drug-discovery project against difficult biological targets,' said Dr Hans Fliri, managing director of Selcia.
Selcia's Cefrag technology uses capillary electrophoresis to detect weak binding interactions between a fragment and target protein.
'We believe Cefrag, combined with Selcia's fragment library with high QC criteria, represents a powerful new platform for the identification of new chemical starting points for lead development,' Fliri added.
'Selcia's scientists were able to successfully identify novel, weak affinity hits from Selcia's fragment library using Cefrag screening technology,' said Dr Eric Beausoleil, director medicinal chemistry at Exonhit Therapeutics.
'This impressive visual technique allowed the selective detection of direct binding interactions to different forms of our target protein,' he continued.
'The new fragment hits were confirmed in our secondary assays and are now undergoing further evaluation,' Beausoleil said.
