Astex in CYP450 alliance with Fujisawa

UK-based Astex Technology has revealed that it has signed a structure-based drug discovery agreement with Japan's Fujisawa.

Under the terms of the collaboration, Astex will utilize its proprietary X-ray crystallography technologies to obtain crystal structures of cytochrome P450s complexed to Fujisawa's compounds. No financial details of the agreement were provided.

"Many candidate drugs fail due to adverse cytochrome P450 interactions. We will use the structural information of Fujisawa's compounds in complexation with human cytochrome P450s obtained by Astex in order to design new drug entities with reduced cytochrome P450 liabilities and further improve the quality of our drug development, "​ commented Toshio Goto, corporate vice president, global research of Fujisawa.

Cytochrome P450 proteins are responsible for metabolising foreign compounds in the body, and are involved in the breakdown of more than 90 per cent of all drugs.

Last month, Astex published the first three-dimensional structure of a cytochrome P450 involved in drug metabolism, CYP 2C9​ in the journal Nature​.

Last year, Astex announced that it had solved the structure of another CYP450, the 3A4 isoform, but the details of this remain confidential.