ActivX Biosciences Inc. entered its first collaboration, a three-year agreement with Kyorin Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. to identify and optimize drug candidates for Type II diabetes.

Using activity-based proteomics, privately held ActivX, of La Jolla, Calif., is responsible for assay development, screening, profiling and selectivity analysis. Tokyo-based Kyorin is responsible for medicinal chemistry and clinical development, and gains worldwide rights to manufacture and commercialize any resulting products.

ActivX Vice President of Finance Dave Humphrey said his company would receive support for ongoing research, milestones and royalties on any products that result, but he would not provide specific numbers. ActivX also secured rights to certain resulting compounds that could have activity in other disease areas.

"This is our first collaboration, so we are very excited about it," Humphrey said of ActivX, which was founded in early 2000. "It validates the technology because it shows [that] pharmaceutical companies see value in the ActivX platform for drug discovery."

John Kozarich, president and CEO of ActivX, noted that Kyorin is about the 15th largest pharmaceutical company in Japan, but it is one of the fastest growing in sales, expecting about 24 percent growth in 2002.

Kozarich said the deal benefits both companies.

"Kyorin is strong in medicinal chemistry and the development aspects, and for ActivX, our strength at this point in time is our technology," he said.

Humphrey said it is also Kyorin's first collaboration with a U.S. biotech company.

"What differentiates us is our focus on protein activity," he said. "We are focused on the activity of proteins vs. the abundance of proteins."

ActivX said its activity-based proteomics platform can be used to solve challenges throughout the drug development process, from target discovery, target validation and lead compound identification in preclinical research to toxicity profiling, dosing and patient stratification in clinical testing.

ActivX's technology allows the company to do selectivity profiling of chemical compounds to identify which protein targets they may be inhibiting, as well as identifying which other target proteins may be inhibited that are not necessarily the target of interest, Humphrey said. Those other proteins may be potential new drug targets.

"We see what other protein targets are being turned off or turned on," he said. "It might be desirable, or it may indicate some sort of toxicity or side effect."

ActivX completed a $20 million private placement in its second round of funding in July. That money allowed the company to grow from 25 employees to its current 50. (See BioWorld Today, July 11, 2002.)

ActivX was founded by Robert Hillman, chief operating officer; Benjamin Cravatt, of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla; and Jeffrey Smith, associate professor and associate scientific director for technological advancement at the Cancer Research Center of the Burnham Institute in La Jolla. Cravatt and Smith are on the company's advisory board. ActivX's initial technology is based on the work of Cravatt and his team at Scripps, which focused on tracking the activity of the serine hydrolase family of enzymes.

Kyorin is a research-oriented pharmaceutical company focused on infectious disease, immunology, allergic diseases and metabolic diseases.