Poniard Licenses Kinase Inhibitors From Scripps Research Institute

Poniard Pharmaceuticals and the Scripps Research Institute, a non-profit biomedical research organization, have announced that an agreement has been executed licensing classes of protein kinase inhibitors for the treatment of human diseases, including cancer.

The license includes compounds that were discovered by Scripps Research in collaboration with Poniard. The research collaboration was initiated in 2005 at Scripps Florida, a division of the Institute located in Palm Beach County, and later broadened to include The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, California.

Jerry McMahon, chairman and CEO of Poniard, said: “We are on target with our program at Poniard to identify a kinase drug candidate that has the potential to be combined with our lead product picoplatin, which is currently in a Phase III registration study for small cell lung cancer.”