BioWorld International Correspondent

LONDON - Systems biology drug design specialist e-Therapeutics Ltd. is to float on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) in London, raising £3 million to £5 million (US$6.1 million to $10.2 million), providing a platform for acquiring undervalued biotech counterparts.

"Our technology enables us to look at whether candidate drugs being developed by other companies are likely to be any good," Malcolm Young, CEO, told BioWorld International. "If we find someone is developing Lipitor II, having an AIM listing will give us a head start in making an acquisition."

Young said Newcastle, UK-based e-Therapeutics has done some limited investigations of products in development at other companies, but has not uncovered any gems as yet. The money raised in the listing will enable it to carry out a more systematic trawl.

"Most compounds we have looked at to date look to be problematic. We think there could be side effects. This reflects the statistics of the industry," Young said.

The funding also will enable the company to advance the in-house portfolio of five products to Phase II trials, when they will be out-licensed.

Unlike high throughput in silico screening in which a large number of compounds are screened against a single protein structure, e-Therapeutics proprietary system can predict the biological effects of interactions of compounds with one or many proteins, thereby enabling it to quickly identify drug candidates and also their likely side effects.

"There is barely a drug in the formulary that only works on one target," Young said. "With the lock and key approach, it may be that the other interactions don't matter. But some of the time they do."

The discovery platform can be used not only to discover new drug compounds but also alternative indications for marketed compounds or combinations of compounds. It also could be used to predict if there are likely to be side effects caused by interactions of prescribed drugs. The platform has been validated in several diseases by using it to identify drugs that are known to have an affect in a particular disease.

The huge number-crunching capability of e-Therapeutics is one of the first commercial manifestations of the development of e-computing grids, a field that has received a high level of public funding from national and European programs.

Young estimated the work underpinning the platform received £10 million in research funding when it was under development at Newcastle University.

The company's portfolio includes ETX 9101 which is starting Phase II trials in asthma, ETS6103 in Phase II for depression, ETS2101 for malignant melanoma and ETS6107 for atherosclerosis, which are both in preclinical proof of efficacy, and ETX1153, a broad-spectrum antibiotic against drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and Clostridium difficile, which is due to enter Phase I in 2008.

The company currently is in licensing negotiations with a number of pharmaceutical companies, Young added. "There is already substantial interest."