Selcia acquires technology from Cetek as basis of new drug discovery division

Licensing deal

Selcia Ltd, based in Ongar, Essex, UK, has acquired intellectual property and expertise in capillary electrophoresis screening (CE Screen) from Cetek Corporation of Marlborough, Massachusetts. The technology platform forms the basis of a new fragment-based drug discovery division launched by Selcia this week

Selcia has adapted CE Screen to enable it to detect the weak binding interactions between drug fragments and therapeutic targets, and claims the technology has significant advantages over other methods for detecting weak interactions.

Clive Cornell, Divisional Head of Discovery, said, “[The] technology requires only very small quantities of target protein and test compounds, is highly reproducible, and gives a very low frequency of false positives.”

Selcia was spun out from Aventis when the French pharmaceuticals company merged with Sanofi. Its main area of expertise is in radiochemistry, where it is a leading provider of contract research services in chemistry, isotopes and analytics.