Cellzome triggers first milestone in epigenetics collaboration with Glaxo

The Anglo-German proteomics specialist Cellzome Ltd has announced that it has achieved the first milestone in its epigenetics alliance with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), triggering a payment from GSK.

The collaboration, announced in March this year, gives GSK exclusive access to Cellzome’s proprietary Episphere technology in the emerging field of epigenetics as applied to immuno-inflammatory disease. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies are using Episphere to identify small molecule drug candidates against targets from four different epigenetic target classes.

The companies are sharing responsibility for work on the programmes until the point at which drug candidates are identified, at which stage GSK will assume responsibility for any further preclinical and clinical development and commercialisation.

Tim Edwards, CEO of Cellzome, said, “We have made an excellent start in this collaboration with GSK. It is only by working with the native proteins from relevant tissue sources that we can really understand these protein complexes and make progress in this area of drug discovery.”