Astex Drug Candidates to be Featured at the 2007 AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Th...( CAMBRIDGE England October 18 /- A...)

CAMBRIDGE, England, October 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Astex Therapeutics Ltd. today announced that data on two of its drug candidates, AT7519 and AT13148, will be presented at the 2007 AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics, to be held October 22-26, 2007 in San Francisco.

AT7519 is a potent and selective Cyclin Dependent Kinase (CDK) inhibitor currently in multi-centre Phase 1 clinical trials. AT13148 is a potent and selective inhibitor of AKT and certain other AGC kinases, which is in pre-clinical development.

AT7519 and AT13148 are among five compounds currently being developed by Astex for the treatment of solid tumours and haematological malignancies. All of the compounds were discovered by Astex using its proprietary fragment-based drug discovery platform Pyramid(TM).

"With fewer than 100 people engaged in drug discovery and development at Astex, we have generated a development pipeline of five novel products in less than five years and put two of those products into clinical trials," said Leon Bushara, Chief Executive of Astex. "That record of productivity is a testament to the power of our drug discovery technology, the strength and focus of our organisation, and the ingenuity of our scientists. Going forward, we expect to introduce at least one new product into development every year."

In addition to AT7519 and AT13148, Astex is developing:

- AT9283, a multi-targeted inhibitor of Aurora kinases, JAK2 and BCR-Abl, currently in multiple Phase 1 and Phase 1/2 multi-center clinical trials;

- AT13387, a selective inhibitor of Hsp90, for which Astex will file, during the fourth quarter of 2007, an Investigational New Drug (IND) application with the FDA to start clinical trials; and

- AT9311, a selective, orally administered, inhibitor of CDKs, partnered with Novartis.

Astex also has five internal drug discovery programmes and is pursuing another six projects in partnersh
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