West Deptford, NJ, USA, 19th April 2016 / Johnson Matthey (LSE: JMAT), a leading provider of pharmaceutical services, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and catalyst technologies and Domainex Ltd. (Cambridge, UK), a small-molecule drug discovery company, have announced a collaboration to provide integrated small molecule pharmaceutical discovery and development services. The focus will be on providing academic institutes, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies across the UK and beyond with effective, simplified, rapid and reduced risk target-to-lead identification, optimisation, safety/toxicology, pre-clinical and clinical API supply services.
Domainex is a leading provider of small molecule drug discovery services that complement the pre-clinical to commercial range of services provided by Johnson Matthey Fine Chemicals’ Custom Pharma Solutions offering in Europe. Through an integrated offering co-located in the Cambridge region, customers will be able to access Domainex’s target-to-lead identification and optimisation capabilities, and will then be able to transfer their projects directly to Johnson Matthey, utilising its Pharmorphix solid state services for effective salt form and polymorph identification through to process development, scale-up and non-GMP toxicology manufacture. With all activities co-located in the Cambridge area, discovery and development time and risk can be greatly minimised.
“Johnson Matthey and Domainex have together recognised there is customer demand for simplified and effective drug discovery and development services. With our combined expertise and facilities based in Cambridge, UK, we are now able to offer customers significant value through this joint service offering,” said Antoine Bordet, European Managing Director at Johnson Matthey Fine Chemicals.
“The transition from drug discovery and candidate nomination into polymorph screening, pre-clinical toxicology and Phase I clinical development is a critical phase in the drug development process,” added Tom Mander, COO of Domainex. “We’re bringing together the necessary complementary people, skills and facilities with Johnson Matthey so that together we can offer an integrated and simplified solution spanning pharmaceutical discovery through to clinical development.”
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About Johnson Matthey’s Fine Chemicals Division
Johnson Matthey’s Fine Chemicals Division provides pharmaceutical customers around the globe with a broad range of services and solutions, including active ingredients, custom development services, catalysts and chiral technologies. To learn more about Johnson Matthey Fine Chemicals, please visit: https://matthey.com/.
About Domainex
Domainex Ltd. is a Cambridge, UK-based small-molecule drug discovery service company that has a proven track record of delivering pre-clinical candidates. These services encompass disease target expression, target-to-lead translation through to pre-clinical candidate identification. Domainex has established proprietary technology platforms such as Combinatorial Domain Hunting to identify novel, soluble protein fragments and the LeadBuilder virtual screening platform to screen over a million lead-like compounds in under a month. Multi-parameter medicinal chemistry optimisation of hits and leads is performed under the mantra ‘every compound counts’, saving up to 30% of average industry time.
Additionally, Domainex is investing in developing its own therapeutic compounds for out-licensing in two specific areas: 1) Inhibitors of the kinases TBK1 & IKK epsilon to treat inflammatory diseases. 2) The emerging epigenetic target class of lysine methyltransferases, potentially implicated in oncology.
For more information please visit www.domainex.co.uk.
Media enquiries
For Johnson Matthey, please contact:
Kate Whelan
Notch Communications
kate.whelan@notchcommunications.se
Tel: +46(0) 70 238 11 49
For Domainex, please contact:
Deborah Cockerill
Sciad Communications
deborah@sciad.com
Tel: +44 (0)79 3031 7729