BioWorld International Correspondent

LONDON - RiboTargets Ltd. entered its first major collaboration, with Johnson & Johnson, for the development of antibiotics around two novel targets on the bacterial ribosome, and announced a financing to raise £15 million to £20 million (US$29 million).

Financial details were not revealed, but CEO Simon Sturge told BioWorld International, "We were in the fortunate position where we had a number of companies bidding for the projects with Johnson and Johnson. This is a very significant deal for us, including up-front payments."

The collaboration is for an initial term of two years. By then, Sturge expects compounds to be in clinical development.

RiboTargets currently has 14 projects, 11 of which are based on novel targets it has discovered on the bacterial ribosome. The two most advanced are the basis of the J&J deal. In one, RiboTargets has reached the stage of lead optimization; in the second it is in the early stages of screening.

Apart from its extensive knowledge of the crystal structure of the bacterial ribosome, RiboTargets, based in Cambridge, UK, has developed a proprietary computer-based screening system called RiboDock. It can both elucidate target structure and evaluate the binding energy of target-compound interactions.

"We have a library of 4 million compounds in house which we can computationally screen against each target, working at a rate of 1 million compounds in 24 hours," Sturge said. The company can look for new hits against known targets, as well as discovering new targets.

Typically it will screen 1 million to 2 million compounds against each target by computer and then run 2,000 to 3,000 compounds in a wet screen.

"We have high confidence in the leads and are able to supply crystal structures of the targets as well," Sturge said.

About 30 classes of antibiotics currently on the market work by binding to the ribosome. "These are some of the safest and most potent antibiotics around," he said.

RiboTargets intends to partner some of its other projects, but also will use the money from the fund raising to build its own clinical pipeline. The company raised £7 million when it was formed in July 1997, and a further £6 million in 2000. It also has projects in AIDS and HIV.