Astex Raises Pound22.7m for Structure-Based Drug Discovery Research


CAMBRIDGE, UK, May 4, 2001 (PRIMEZONE) -- Astex Technology (LSE:ASTE), the structure-based drug discovery company pioneering the use of High Throughput X-ray crystallography (HTX(TM)), today announced the closing of a Pound22.7m ($32.5m) private financing round.

The new investors, Advent International, Alta Partners and GIMV, significantly broaden Astex's shareholder base, which includes Abingworth and Oxford Bioscience Partners. The company will use the funding to continue building its structure-based drug discovery technologies to identify novel small molecule therapeutics. Timothy J. Haines, Chief Executive of Astex said, "We are delighted with the amount of interest Astex has received from investors in Europe and North America. We are now in a strong position to rapidly progress the novel lead discovery approaches being developed at Astex, which will transform the use of protein structure in drug discovery and will result in new drug candidates being identified and optimized at unprecedented rates." "Astex is in an important area at an important time, where the role of protein structure is about to become much more central to the drug discovery process," said Dr Stephen Bunting, Director of Abingworth and Chairman of the Board at Astex. "This has been acknowledged by the investment community and has led to strong financial support for the management team to carry out their objectives." Patrick Van Beneden, Investment Director of Life Sciences at GIMV, will join the Astex Board and represent the new investors from this round of funding.

Astex is pioneering the use of High Throughput X-ray crystallography (HTX(TM)) for the rapid identification of novel drug candidates. HTX(TM) is part of an integrated structure-based drug discovery platform that includes cutting-edge technologies covering all aspects of structure-based research, including protein production, crystallization, structure determination, bio-informatics and computational and medicinal chemistry. Astex Technology Ltd. was founded in 1999 by two Cambridge academics: Professor Sir Tom Blundell, and Dr Chris Abell, together with Dr Harren Jhoti, previously Head of Structural Biology and UK Bioinformatics at GlaxoWellcome, and Abingworth. Astex is located on the Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge, UK, in 15,000 sq. ft. of customized office and laboratory space. Astex has recruited leading experts in the fields of molecular biology, protein purification, X-ray crystallography, chemo-informatics, bio-informatics and medicinal chemistry, and currently employs 50 people including 35 PhD's.

Astex has two research agreements with Janssen Research Foundation, a division of Johnson & Johnson, and has just announced a major structural biology research agreement with AstraZeneca AB (NYSE:AZN), focused on solving novel cytochrome P450 crystal structures.

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