Aurora Biosciences Corp., a privately held company with expertise inmammalian cell-based screens for drug discovery, is positioning itselfto take advantage of explosions in genomics, which generate newmolecular targets linked to disease, and combinatorial chemistry,which creates the potential compounds to affect those targets.

Aurora's chairman and CEO, Timothy Rink, told BioWorld Todayhis start-up company sees itself at the confluence of genomics andcombinatorial chemistry, providing fluorescence-based screens inmammalian cells to judge the biological effectiveness of drugcandidates against targets, such as enzymes, proteins, ligands andreceptors, which are being discovered daily through gene sequencing.

Rink said Aurora, founded in 1995 with seed financing from AvalonVentures, a San Diego venture capital firm, completed its first majorround of funding today, raising $13.6 million. Lead investors wereAbingworth Management Ltd., of London, Domain Partners, ofPrinceton, N.J., and New Enterprise Associates, of Baltimore.

"The core of our business," Rink said, "is functional screening incells engineered with pathways that are activated or blocked in aphysiological context."

Genomics is identifying tens of thousands of molecular targets fordrugs through gene discovery, Rink observed, while combinatorialchemistry generates millions of potential new therapeutic compounds.

To find a compound that inhibits or activates a genetic target, whosefunction is linked to a specific disease, and evaluate how theinteraction works in a living cell, Rink said, Aurora usesfluorescence-based screening technology developed by thecompany's primary scientific founder, Roger Tsien, professor ofchemistry and pharmacology at the University of California at SanDiego.

The fluorescence screens allow researchers to monitor immediatelywhether a compound has activated or inhibited a molecular event,Rink said, adding that using different colors of light permits testingfor multiple activities.

For example, he said, if the goal is to find a compound that up-regulates a specific receptor, a mammalian cell could be engineeredto express the target and a fluorescent signal when a hit occurs. Thehigh-throughput screening technology, Rink said, has the potential toconduct "hundreds of thousands of tests per day."

Aurora, which currently has six employees and is located in La Jolla,Calif., does not intend to develop its own drug discovery effort. Thecompany, Rink said, will pursue collaborations with genomics andcombinatorial chemistry companies as well as biotechnology andpharmaceutical firms.

Rink joined Aurora after working five years as president and chieftechnical officer of Amylin Pharmaceuticals Inc., of San Diego. Healso was vice president of research for London-based SmithKlineBeecham plc.

Kevin Kinsella, president and CEO of Sequana Therapeutics Inc., aLa Jolla-based genomics company, is a managing partner in AvalonPartners and a co-founder of Aurora.

"Given Aurora's breadth of technology plus its focus on providinginnovative leads for pharmaceutical development," Kinsella said,"Aurora offers enormous appeal to a genomics company that'screating a substantial number of drug targets." n

-- Charles Craig

(c) 1997 American Health Consultants. All rights reserved.