Domainex programme shows great promise for the treatment of inflammatory diseases, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

UCLB spinout company Domainex Ltd. today announced that it has successfully completed a series of laboratory studies examining the in vivo effects of its proprietary selective inhibitors of IKK-epsilon and TBK1 in inflammation models.   In four separate studies a lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge was delivered either to the lungs or systemically to mimic the effect of inflammatory disease.  In these experiments Domainex showed that its orally-delivered compounds can inhibit the expression of a number of pro-inflammatory cytokines including TNF-alpha, RANTES, IL-1-beta, and IL-6, and maintain prolonged activity against many of the cytokines for at least 20 hours.  No obvious side-effects were evident. These results are extremely promising in the search for new treatments of life-limiting diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Domainex’s Director of Research, Dr Trevor Perrior said: “These exciting results clearly show that Domainex’s programme on IKKe/TBK1 offers the prospect of new treatments for a number of inflammatory diseases, including psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis and COPD. It’s also very significant that the compounds can be delivered orally, because in many of these diseases – such as psoriasis and COPD – patients are in great need of effective oral medicines”.

Domainex’s CEO Dr Eddy Littler said: “This is a major achievement by Domainex and we will build upon this success with further in vivo models of inflammatory diseases.  Our first disease model will be for COPD, a disease which has high medical need and enormous commercial potential.  Our compounds are likely to achieve the highly-attractive profile of being safe, effective, and orally-delivered anti-inflammatory compounds”.

Domainex will continue to study the utility of these compounds as treatments for COPD, and other inflammatory diseases.  It hopes to partner the programme soon and to proceed to Phase I Clinical Trials.

About Domainex
Domainex uses unique and proprietary technologies to resolve common bottlenecks facing the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries in the post-genomic era. Major discovery ‘gaps’ exist between the vast amount of genomic information that is now available, the accessibility of the corresponding proteins for use in target validation and drug discovery, and the identification of robust hits in a cost effective manner. Founded in 2002, Domainex is a privately owned company based in Cambridge, UK.

Domainex has developed a discovery platform, which enables rapid progression of drug discovery projects from novel target through to Candidate Drug by means of its Combinatorial Domain Hunting technology, LeadBuilder virtual hit screening software, and its integrated approach to medicinal and computational chemistry.

Domainex’s is a privately funded revenue generating company. It was established in 2002 and has attracted investment from UCLB, the Bloomsbury Bioseed Fund, Longbow Capital, The Capital Fund (managed by YFM Venture Finance), Bury-Fitzwilliam, Juno Capital and from Takeda Research Investments.  The UK’s Biomedical Catalyst fund, run jointly by the Technology Strategy Board and the Medical Research Council, also helped to support Domainex’s work on COPD drug discovery

For more information see: www.domainex.co.uk or contact:
Joanne McCudden,Head of Business Development, Joanne.mccudden@domainex.co.uk,Tel +44 (0)7775 437107 or Sylvie Berrebi, Media Relations, sylvie@sciad.com, Tel +44 (0)7795 197271

About the Technology Strategy Board
The Technology Strategy Board is the UK’s innovation agency.  Its goal is to accelerate economic growth by stimulating and supporting business-led innovation.  Sponsored by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), the Technology Strategy Board brings together business, research and the public sector, supporting and accelerating the development of innovative products and services to meet market needs, tackle major societal challenges and help build the future economy.

For more information, please visit: www.innovateuk.org

About UCLB
UCLB is a leading technology transfer company that supports and commercialises research and innovations arising from UCL, one of the UK’s top research-led universities.

UCLB has a successful track record and a strong reputation for identifying and protecting promising new technologies and innovations from UCL academics. It invests directly in development projects to maximise the potential of the research and manages the commercialisation process of technologies from the laboratory to market.

UCLB supports UCL’s Grand Challenges of increasing UCL’s positive impact on and contribution to Global Health, Sustainable Cities, Intercultural Interaction and Human Wellbeing.

For further information, please visit: www.uclb.com