Astex Wins Company Newsflow of the Year Award
Cambridge, UK, 11th December 2009
Astex Therapeutics Limited, the UK based biotechnology company developing targeted therapies for oncology, has won the “Company Newsflow of the Year” Award at the Genesis Conference Awards Dinner in London. The Genesis Awards celebrate the best of the UK biotechnology sector, and recognise the great success achieved by the UK’s leading companies, universities and investors over the previous 12 months.
The Awards are sponsored by UK Trade and Investment - the UK Government organisation that provides support services to help UK-based companies maximise their international success - and are intended to highlight UK success in the biosciences to overseas markets, building investor confidence in the sector and keeping the sector’s success in the forefront of politicians’ minds. The Company Newsflow of the Year Award is made in recognition of significant achievement in product development, financing, licensing, alliance and dealmaking, and for outstanding business growth.
Included in the highlights for Astex in 2009 have been the following:
• A $500M strategic drug discovery alliance with GlaxoSmithKline announced in November.
• The award of a CRADA with the National Cancer Institute for further clinical development of the company’s HSP90 inhibitor AT13387 also announced in November.
• Reports of positive data from development of the company’s clinical candidates, AT9283, AT7519, AT13387 and AT13148 at major international cancer meetings during the year including AACR, ASCO, EORTC and ASH.
• An award of $1 million from the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation in the US to support clinical development of AT7519 announced in March.
• Partnerships with Cancer Research UK to collaborate on clinical studies of AT9283 in childhood cancers and on early clinical development of AT13148.
• An award of £2 million from The Wellcome Trust for pioneering HCV research announced in March.
• The achievement of scientific and financial milestones in the company’s drug discovery collaborations with Novartis and with Janssen Pharmaceutica NV.
Receiving the Award on behalf of the Company during the Genesis Conference Awards Dinner, at the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre in London, Dr Martin Buckland, Astex’s Chief Business Officer, said, “The announcement of this award is a reflection, not only of the achievements of Astex during the year, but also the way in which the Company has communicated its newsflow to the outside world and I’m delighted to accept this prestigious award on behalf of all my colleagues at Astex.”
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Contact
Jeremy Carmichael, PhD
Director of Business Development
Astex Therapeutics Ltd
436 Cambridge Science Park
Milton Road, Cambridge
CB4 0QA, UK
Tel: +44(0)1223 226200
Fax: +44(0)1223 226201
j.carmichael@astex-therapeutics.com
www.astex-therapeutics.com
About Astex Therapeutics
Astex is a UK-based biotechnology company that discovers and develops novel small molecule therapeutics. Using its pioneering fragment-based drug discovery platform Pyramid™, Astex has built a pipeline of five molecularly-targeted oncology drugs, of which three are currently being tested in clinical trials and two are in pre-clinical development.
In addition to its proprietary research programmes, Astex’s productivity in lead discovery has been endorsed through numerous partnerships with major pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca, Bayer-Schering, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Johnson & Johnson.
For further information on Astex, please visit the Company’s website at www.astex-therapeutics.com.