2010 News Archive

Domainex wins Genesis Award for its work in supporting Translational Research

Domainex Ltd, the leading UK-based drug discovery CRO, has won the 2010 Genesis Life Science Innovation and Enterprise Programme Of The Year Award. This Award was made in recognition of Domainex’s proactive work on promoting academic-industry collaborations, and was adjudicated by leading representatives of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

Link to One Nucleus report

Domainex collaborates with Sigma-Aldrich to advance the study of epigenetic proteins involved in cancer and stem cell biology

Under the collaboration, Domainex will use its proprietary Combinatorial Domain Hunting (CDH) technology, which enables researchers to clone and express challenging proteins, to produce soluble domains of a number of proteins that have key roles in epigenetics. Domainex will use those proteins to construct biochemical assays for the target enzymes, and Sigma-Aldrich will use the proteins as antigens to raise specific monoclonal antibodies. The assays and monoclonal antibodies, which will be distributed by Sigma-Aldrich, will be used by researchers to identify the target proteins and allow their function to be characterized and studied in detail.

Domainex appoints Dr Joanne McCudden as Head of Business Development.

Domainex and scientists led by Professor Alan Ashworth of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre at the Institute of Cancer Research have discovered drug-like compounds that inhibit an enzyme from the PARP superfamily.

Domainex will now provide lead optimization services that will assist Ashworth's team to develop drug candidates targeting this enzyme. The programme recently received a £4 million research grant under the Wellcome Trust's Seeding Drug Discovery Initiative.

Domainex has secured further financing to develop its Combinatorial Domain Hunting (CDH) technology, and to advance its internal pipeline of oncology targets.

The two-stage funding round will bring in a significant investment from Longbow, The Capital Fund, Bury Fitzwilliam-Lay & Partners LLP, and Takeda Research Investment, Inc. (TRI). The involvement of TRI represents an important recognition of the value of Domainex’s unique CDH technology, and of its novel oncology pipeline. More...

Domainex makes a breakthrough on novel protein-protein interaction cancer target.

Our scientists have been instrumental in identifying small-molecule inhibitors of the Neuropilin 1 – VEGF-A interaction, thereby demonstrating that this is an important target for the development of novel anticancer therapeutics. The work, reported in the latest edition of the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, was carried out by Domainex on behalf of its client Ark Therapeutics. Protein-protein interactions have for a long time been considered tough targets for small-molecule drug discovery, but Domainex has demonstrated that its approach, based on high-quality structure based drug design and insightful medicinal chemistry, is able to crack even difficult problems such as these.

Domainex and Pharmidex announce a strategic drug discovery services alliance

Professor Salvador Moncada, a director of Domainex, received a knighthood for services to Science in the 2010 New Year's Honours List.

Professor Moncada is Director of the Wolfson Institute of Biomedical Research at UCL, and he has made ground-breaking discoveries in cardiovascular pharmacology of major significance to translational medicine over a period of more than three decades.