Cresset Discovery Services contracted by PhoreMost to work on ‘undruggable’ oncology protein target

Cambridge, UK – 4th December 2019 – Cresset Discovery Services, provider of contract research services for early phase discovery, is pleased to announce it has been contracted by PhoreMost Limited, the UK-based biopharmaceutical company dedicated to drugging ‘undruggable’ disease targets, to work on a novel oncology protein target.
 
PhoreMost has leveraged its proprietary SITESEEKER® drug discovery platform and PROTEINi® libraries to identify a peptide sequence inhibiting a novel protein target which was previously thought to be undruggable, relevant to an oncogenic cellular pathway. Cresset Discovery Services has been contracted under a flexible service agreement to determine how the peptide binds to the target, and to ultimately help find small molecules that have the same effect.

“We have already completed a computational analysis of the peptide sequence to predict binding mode and geometry, using a pre-release version of our Flare™ V3 software, a structure-based design solution, to provide electrostatic and surface hotspot mapping,” explains Dr Martin Slater, Director of Consulting Services at Cresset Discovery Services.

“Our SITESEEKER platform offers a powerful solution for identifying novel targets and mechanisms that are therapeutically interesting,” says Dr Richard Boyce, Senior Director of Research at PhoreMost. “Cresset Discovery Services’ computational experience and high standard of scientific support is ideally suited to help drive the next stage of this project.”