Cambridge UK life science neighbours Domainex and Horizon Discovery are collaborating on new oncology initiative.

Horizon will profile a number of lead compounds against a panel of X-MAN™ isogenic disease model human cell lines, which accurately model the mutations found in cancer cells.

Profiling of Domainex’s lead TBK1/IKKe dual inhibitor molecules against the X-MAN cell lines will enable identification of the effect of individual mutations on drug activity and resistance and prediction of which patient sub-groups will respond.

This will help guide the medicinal chemistry optimization program and will provide important patient stratification data for future partnering.

Financial terms of the partnership are not being disclosed.

Eddy Littler, CEO of Domainex said: “Horizon’s oncology and genome editing expertise are a valuable complement to our in-house biochemistry, medicinal chemistry and computer aided drug design capabilities.

“We look forward to working together to efficiently and cost-effectively develop a drug molecule for this important target. We also look forward to future collaborations with Horizon on Domainex’s epigenetic pipeline in oncology and with the wide number of projects that Domainex supports on behalf of its clients.”

Horizon’s Discovery Toolbox is based on its proprietary precision rAAV-mediated genome editing technology (GENESIS™), over 450 X-MAN human isogenic cell lines that more accurately model patient genetics (known as ‘patients in a test tube’), and 2D and 3D phenotypic assays.

The toolbox enables the recapitulation of the patient situation in vitro and allows screening of the most important activated cancer genes and pathways found in patients, under conditions that mimic the micro environment of the disease.