Codexis Licenses New Drug Metabolite Profiling and Lead Diversification Technology From the California Institute of ...( Potential Earlier Identification of ...)

Potential Earlier Identification of Toxicity, Efficacy for Pharmaceutical

Developers

REDWOOD CITY, Calif., Aug. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Codexis, Inc., a private biotechnology company and leading developer of clean manufacturing processes, today announced it has licensed important intellectual property from the California Institute of Technology for preparing and identifying drug metabolites (substances produced during drug metabolism). Codexis will incorporate this technology in development of new R&D productivity tools for use by the pharmaceutical industry.

This technology is based on development of a family of diverse variants of bacterial cytochrome P450 enzymes by Frances Arnold, Ph.D., Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biochemistry, Cal Tech. Dr. Arnold will join the Codexis Industrial Advisory Board.

"This enzyme family can facilitate identification of safer, more efficacious drugs earlier in the drug development process by expediting the production of potential human metabolites of drug candidates," said Peter Seufer-Wasserthal, Ph.D., Vice President and General Manager, Codexis Pharma Services Group. "Additionally, this technology can be used for lead diversification and complements the human cytochrome biocatalyst products and services at BioCatalytics, acquired by Codexis in July."

"Current metabolite identification and synthesis methods are based on classical chemistry methods, which can be slow and cumbersome," he added. "Combining Codexis' leading position as a developer of biocatalytic products and processes for the pharmaceutical industry with the techniques developed by Dr. Arnold will enable us to provide a powerful, efficient new tool set for rapid identification and synthesis of drug metabolites. These new tools could add considerable value in metabolite profiling as well as lead diversification in drug discovery."

Drug metabolites are produced by the
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