Astex Pharmaceuticals receives milestone fee from Janssen

Astex Pharmaceuticals has received a milestone payment for partner Janssen Pharmaceutica based on the clinical progress of their joint cancer drug discovery programme.

Janssen has received clearance to commence a phase I clinical trial of a new FGFR kinase inhibitor treatment, thus triggering a 3.5 million pound payment to Astex.

The companies have been working together on this project since 2008, with Astex having applied its fragment-based drug discovery approach Pyramid to help identify lead compounds with potential efficacy against cancer.

Astex is also eligible to receive further milestones during clinical development, as well as royalties upon commercialisation of products derived from the collaboration.

Dr Harren Jhoti, president of Astex, said: "This milestone underscores how effective collaborations between leading research institutions, biotech companies and pharmaceutical partners can be in delivering new drug candidates for patients."

According to its most recent fiscal report, Astex generated sales of $22 million (14 million pounds) in the first quarter of 2012, up from $17.1 million in Q1 2011.