News & Events

Xenome Limited ("Xenome") today announced it has executed a research collaboration agreement with Axxam SpA ("Axxam"), a leading biotechnology research organization offering early-stage discovery research services for the life science industry.

This partnership will combine Xenome's expertise in peptide chemistry and peptide drug development with Axxam's know-how in target biology, assay development and highthroughput screening with a view to the discovery and development of novel GPCR modulators.

Under the agreement, Axxam will screen Xenome's proprietary xventureTM peptide library against five undisclosed GPCR targets in therapeutic areas including pain, obesity and ophthalmology. Xenome will optimize promising ‘hits' resulting from the screening program in order to develop lead molecules suitable for pre-clinical development.

Xenome will have the right to commercialize products arising from the collaboration with both companies sharing the financial outcomes. Financial terms of the agreement remain confidential.

"Xenome is proud to have such an accomplished screening company as Axxam as a partner in assessing its xventureTM peptide library," said Xenome's Chief Executive Officer, Dr Ian Nisbet. "This library is a recent addition to Xenome's technology platform and the partnership with Axxam will help us establish it as a valuable tool for drug discovery".

The xventure^TM library is a proprietary collection of more than 5500 synthetic peptides that have been designed to mimic the structural motifs of bioactive peptides found in venoms. Central to the library is a novel molecular scaffold that was developed with the aim of producing drug candidates with the efficacy and specificity of peptides as well as the size and stability of smaller molecules. The library represents significant structural and chemical diversity and is suitable for high throughput screening as well as quick and efficient optimization based on Structure-Activity Relationship (SAR) analysis.