Roche and UK-based biopharmaceutical company PhoreMost have agreed to a multi-project target discovery collaboration.
Under the terms of the agreement, PhoreMost will receive an upfront payment and is eligible for preclinical success-based milestones.
PhoreMost will deploy its phenotypic screening platform, SITESEEKER, toward disease-relevant pathways nominated by Roche. Novel targets identified will be further validated and characterised by Roche’s R&D organisation, and any SITESEEKER-based probes would become the starting point for drug discovery efforts across a set of disease pathways in immunology and haematology.
The platform is based on PhoreMost’s ‘Protein Interference’ (PROTEINi) technology. PhoreMost probes the entire proteome in a live cell environment for novel druggable targets linked to any chosen disease, using the vast 3D shape diversity of natural protein fragment (sub-domain) libraries. SITESEEKER systematically unmasks new and unanticipated druggable sites, directly linking them to therapeutic functions.
Dr Neil Torbett, CEO of PhoreMost, commented: “We are delighted that Roche has chosen to work with us to enhance its drug discovery pipeline using PROTEINi and SITESEEKER to identify novel targets and unlock the power of protein structure prediction.”
