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Kindred Spirits in Small Molecule Drug Discovery

 
• By Mary Stuart

Kinetix Pharmaceuticals hoped that a focus on a particular class of targets that shares structural similarities--the protein kinases--would yield small molecules for a variety of therapeutic areas. But in order to realize synergies between multiple research projects in protein kinases, the company couldn't partner the projects out to numerous pharmaceutical partners, each requiring exclusivity and confidentiality. After technological rival Vertex signed a multi-million dollar protein kinase development partnership with Novartis, Kinetix began to rethink its original business model. A $170 million acquisition offer by Amgen Inc. made strategic sense for the start-up.

If large molecule therapeutics have largely been the province of biotech companies, Big Pharma has owned the small molecule side of drug discovery. But a number of companies formed in the last couple of years figure they can speed up the process of small molecule discovery by integrating expertise and existing technologies in novel ways. Large companies, they contend, have siloed the requisite expertise in different, quasi-independent departments, slowing up the R&D process.

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