Washington Editor

As part of a deal with Eli Lilly and Co., Structural GenomiX Inc. agreed to install its gene-to-structure technology for Lilly in a high-throughput structural biology facility.

But before the facility is up and running, Structural GenomiX (SGX) will apply the gene-to-structure technology platform to certain Lilly drug targets to determine their 3-dimensional structures.

"The first year we will be giving them a head start by solving a large number of structures for them, and then we will gradually hand over the gene-to-structure platform so that they can do this themselves in their own laboratory," Mike Grey, chief business officer of San Diego-based SGX, told BioWorld Today. "Then, the second year will be a transition, and then there will be an option in the third year to work with Lilly on the research collaboration."

For SGX, a privately held company, snagging a partnership with a company of Lilly's size is quite a coup. "From our point of view, this provides a tremendous amount of support and it validates our technology when a major company is going to have our technology installed for their captive use," Grey said. "I believe it separates us from the rest of the structural biology crowd."

Specifically, SGX researchers will generate data on compounds that bind to the drug targets, providing input for Lily's lead-generation and -optimization efforts. Meanwhile, the gene-to-structure facility will include modular, automated systems and process technology developed by SGX for protein engineering, crystallization and structural determination.

Grey referred to the new Lilly facility as a "clone" of SGX's, saying, "We have a very powerful platform and we have a number of different ways of working with major pharmaceutical companies."

On the financial side of things neither Grey nor Herb Mutter, SGX's vice president of finance, discussed specifics of the agreement.

Grey characterized it as a "double-digit, millions of dollars" deal.

Mutter said the Lilly deal will pay for more than 70 percent of SGX's expenses this year, and it extends the company's cash runway through the end of 2005.

"From a financing standpoint, obviously right now, it's a fairly bear market," Mutter said. "So we can wait for about 12 months before we have to look at doing another financing."

SGX is involved in other collaborations with Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass.; Aventis Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Bridgewater, N.J.; and Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, of Ingelheim, Germany.

In addition, the company is working with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, of Bethesda, Md., to decipher the 3-dimensional structure of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator protein that, when defective, can cause cystic fibrosis. SGX is using its structure-directed drug discovery technologies in a collaboration with the Hereditary Disease Foundation, of Santa Monica, Calif., to investigate the structure of the protein responsible for Huntington's disease.

And last fall, the company was granted authority by the National Institutes of Health to manage $18.1 million over three years in a public-private venture focused on protein structure research. (See BioWorld Today, Nov. 18, 2002.)

The company has its own early stage drug discovery program focused on oncology. Grey said SGX should be in a position to give timelines for an investigational new drug application later in the second half of this year.