Vernalis Research develops and applies

fragment Fragment(s) may refer to: Computing and logic * Fragment (computer graphics), all the data necessary to generate a pixel in the frame buffer * Fragment (logic), a syntactically restricted subset of a logical language * URI fragment, the compone ...

and structure-based methods to

drug discovery In the fields of medicine, biotechnology, and pharmacology, drug discovery is the process by which new candidate medications are discovered. Historically, drugs were discovered by identifying the active ingredient from traditional remedies or ...

, and has generated cell active

lead compound A lead compound (, i.e. a "leading" compound, not to be confused with various compounds of the metallic element lead) in drug discovery is a chemical compound that has pharmacological or biological activity likely to be therapeutically useful, but ...

s and development candidates against

biological target A biological target is anything within a living organism to which some other entity (like an endogenous ligand or a drug) is directed and/or binds, resulting in a change in its behavior or function. Examples of common classes of biological targets ...

s in

oncology Oncology is a branch of medicine that deals with the study, treatment, diagnosis, and prevention of cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an ''oncologist''. The name's Etymology, etymological origin is the Greek word ὄγ ...

neurodegeneration A neurodegenerative disease is caused by the progressive loss of neurons, in the process known as neurodegeneration. Neuronal damage may also ultimately result in their cell death, death. Neurodegenerative diseases include amyotrophic lateral sc ...

anti-infectives infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable disea ...

and

inflammation Inflammation (from ) is part of the biological response of body tissues to harmful stimuli, such as pathogens, damaged cells, or irritants. The five cardinal signs are heat, pain, redness, swelling, and loss of function (Latin ''calor'', '' ...

History

Following the sale of

Vernalis plc Vernalis plc was a UK-based pharmaceuticals business headquartered in Winnersh, with research in Cambridge, and with a Berwyn, PA, US-based commercial operation, Vernalis Therapeutics Inc., focusing on the sales and marketing of slow-release ...

on 10 October 2018, Vernalis Research became a subsidiary of Ligand Holdings UK Ltd, wholly owned by Ligand Pharmaceuticals, Inc. On 2 December 2020, HitGen (Chengdu, China), acquired the entire issued share capital of Vernalis (R&D) Limited. Their scientists, based at

Granta Park Granta Park is a science, technology and biopharmaceutical park based on the bank of the Granta (river), River Granta in The Abingtons, Cambridgeshire, Great Abington near Cambridge, England. The idea for the park came from the chief executiv ...

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

UK, integrate fragment-based approaches,

structural biology Structural biology deals with structural analysis of living material (formed, composed of, and/or maintained and refined by living cells) at every level of organization. Early structural biologists throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries we ...

biophysics Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that applies approaches and methods traditionally used in physics to study biological phenomena. Biophysics covers all scales of biological organization, from molecular to organismic and populations ...

assay An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, mining, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence, amount, or functional activity ...

technology,

drug metabolism Drug metabolism is the metabolic breakdown of drugs by living organisms, usually through specialized enzymatic systems. More generally, xenobiotic metabolism (from the Greek xenos "stranger" and biotic "related to living beings") is the set o ...

pharmacokinetics Pharmacokinetics (from Ancient Greek ''pharmakon'' "drug" and ''kinetikos'' "moving, putting in motion"; see chemical kinetics), sometimes abbreviated as PK, is a branch of pharmacology dedicated to describing how the body affects a specific su ...

cheminformatics Cheminformatics (also known as chemoinformatics) refers to the use of physical chemistry theory with computer and information science techniques—so called "'' in silico''" techniques—in application to a range of descriptive and prescriptive ...

molecular modelling Molecular modelling encompasses all methods, theoretical and computational, used to model or mimic the behaviour of molecules. The methods are used in the fields of computational chemistry, drug design, computational biology and materials scien ...

and

computational A computation is any type of arithmetic or non-arithmetic calculation that is well-defined. Common examples of computation are mathematical equation solving and the execution of computer algorithms. Mechanical or electronic devices (or, historic ...

, synthetic organic and

medicinal chemistry Medicinal or pharmaceutical chemistry is a scientific discipline at the intersection of chemistry and pharmacy involved with drug design, designing and developing pharmaceutical medication, drugs. Medicinal chemistry involves the identification, ...

to enable

on both established and novel targets, progressing projects from target identification through to clinical candidate. They have generated

s on

enzymes An enzyme () is a protein that acts as a biological catalyst by accelerating chemical reactions. The molecules upon which enzymes may act are called substrates, and the enzyme converts the substrates into different molecules known as pro ...

, protein-protein interactions and

GPCR G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), also known as seven-(pass)-transmembrane domain receptors, 7TM receptors, heptahelical receptors, serpentine receptors, and G protein-linked receptors (GPLR), form a large group of evolutionarily related ...

s, leading to clinical candidates for targets such as

Chk1 Checkpoint kinase 1, commonly referred to as Chk1, is a serine/threonine-specific protein kinase that, in humans, is encoded by the ''CHEK1'' gene. Chk1 coordinates the DNA damage response (DDR) and cell cycle checkpoint response. Activation of C ...

Hsp90 Hsp90 (heat shock protein 90) is a chaperone (protein), chaperone protein that assists other proteins to protein folding, fold properly, stabilizes proteins against heat stress, and aids in protein degradation. It also stabilizes a number of ...

Bcl-2 Bcl-2, encoded in humans by the ''BCL2'' gene, is the founding member of the Bcl-2 family of regulator proteins. BCL2 blocks programmed cell death (apoptosis) while other BCL2 family members can either inhibit or induce it. It was the first a ...

Mcl-1 Induced myeloid leukemia cell differentiation protein Mcl-1 is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''MCL1'' gene. Function The protein encoded by this gene belongs to the Bcl-2 family. Alternative splicing occurs at this locus and two t ...

FAAH Fatty-acid amide hydrolase 1 (FAAH) is a member of the serine hydrolase family of enzymes. It was first shown to break down anandamide (AEA), an N-Acylethanolamine, ''N''-acylethanolamine (NAE) in 1993. In humans, it is encoded by the gene ''FAA ...

and A_2A. As well as an internal portfolio of drug discovery projects, Vernalis Research has a number of research collaborations on targets with large pharmaceutical companies and academic partners. Recently disclosed collaborations include those with

Servier Servier Laboratories (French: Laboratoires Servier, often abbreviated to Servier) is an international Pharmaceutical industry, pharmaceutical company governed by a non-profit foundation, with its headquarters in France (Suresnes). The consolida ...

Daiichi Sankyo is a global pharmaceutical company and the second-largest pharmaceutical company in Japan. It achieved JPY 1,278 billion in revenue in 2022. The company owns the American pharmaceutical company American Regent. Daiichi Sankyo, Inc. (DSI) began ...

Lundbeck H. Lundbeck A/S, commonly referred to as Lundbeck, is a Denmark, Danish international pharmaceutical company engaged in the research, development, manufacturing, marketing and sale of pharmaceuticals across the world. The company’s products ar ...

and Asahi Kasei Pharma. In 2014, the company was awarded a

Queen's Award for Enterprise Queens is a borough of New York City. Queens or Queen's may also refer to: Arts and entertainment * Queens (group), a Polish musical group * "Queens" (song), a 2018 song by Saara Aalto * ''Queens'' (novel), by Stephen Pickles, 1984 * "Queens", ...

, for outstanding achievement in International Trade, endorsing both the talent and capabilities of its research group, and recognition of the growing overseas earnings it has achieved. Vernalis Research has delivered a number of drug candidates into clinical development, some of which remained as part of the Ligand Pharmaceuticals, Inc. portfolio following the sale of the research business to HitGen. These include V158866, the lead molecule arising from an in-house

research programme, which completed a phase II study in spinal cord injury patients in July 2015. Additionally, luminespib ( AUY922) is a novel intravenous

inhibitor with the potential to target a range of cancers, which arose from a research collaboration starting in 2004, originally between

, the

Institute of Cancer Research The Institute of Cancer Research (the ICR) is a public research institute and a member institution of the University of London in London, United Kingdom, specialising in oncology. It was founded in 1909 as a research department of the Royal Ma ...

and Cancer Research Technology, and then with

Novartis Novartis AG is a Swiss multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical company, pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland. Novartis is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and was the eighth largest by re ...

. A further example is V158411, the lead intravenous molecule arising from an in-house structure-based

oncology research programme.

References

{{Pharmaceutical industry in the United Kingdom Pharmaceutical companies of the United Kingdom Biotechnology companies of the United Kingdom 1997 establishments in England Biotechnology companies established in 1997