LONDON - The bioinformatics company Inpharmatica Ltd. said the first drug target identified through its Biopendium database, launched in October, already has progressed into a lead discovery program. This is the first milestone in a collaboration with Arrow Therapeutics Ltd. to identify anti-infectives.

Biopendium, based on sequence and structure information from public databases, is a tool for linking gene sequences with protein structure. It contains precalculated analyses on more than 500,000 sequences, revealing 200 million protein structure annotations. By comparing each protein sequence to all others, it reveals the relationships between individual proteins, simplifying the search for drug targets.

Ken Powell, CEO of London-based Inpharmatica, told BioWorld International, "The aim is to find a broad-spectrum antibiotic, so we needed to find a target which worked in gram-positive and gram-negative organisms. In addition we wanted to find a target which is not in the mammalian genome, and so avoid possible side effects.

"This is a significant validation of Biopendium, that we have taken a target through to drug discovery without getting our hands wet."

The search started with a list of potential antimicrobial gene targets shown through Arrow's technology to express essential gene products for bacterial survival and growth. "We were able to look at each of these in the context of Biopendium and quickly assess the suitability of each of these targets to enter into drug discovery programs," Powell said.

"In addition, we were able to assess the structure and functional similarity of each bacterial target to all known human proteins within the database." This helps to ensure that any drugs developed against these targets will not also interact with structurally homologous human proteins leading to toxicity at a later stage of clinical development.

Ian Charles, chief scientist of Arrow, based in Carshalton, Surrey, said the new target will enable it to discover broad-spectrum antibiotic compounds with built-in selectivity. "Primary screening of compound libraries based on this information is already in progress."