Ambit Biosciences Announces Drug Screening Collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline
San Diego, CA - January 17, 2005 - Ambit Biosciences today announced that it has entered into an expanded kinase screening collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). Under the collaboration, Ambit will employ its proprietary kinase platform to profile kinase target specificity of selected GSK compounds, thereby accelerating the discovery and development of novel drug candidates. Ambit's groundbreaking kinase platform is a rapidly expanding panel of more than 170 quantitative, high-throughput kinase assays.
"Our kinase platform enables Ambit and our partners to fundamentally improve and accelerate the process of identifying high-quality, small molecule kinase inhibitors. We are particularly proud of the GlaxoSmithKline collaboration because it is an expansion of our relationship that has been ongoing since 2003 and further validates our unique screening capability," said Scott Salka, CEO of Ambit. "The earnings generated from our partnerships, including our existing multi-year collaboration with Roche, will support the continued development of Ambit's pipeline of drug candidates for the treatment of stroke and various cancers, the first of which we plan to advance into clinical trials during 2005."
About Ambit Biosciences
Ambit Biosciences is a privately-held biopharmaceutical company developing small molecule neuroprotectants for the treatment of stroke and other CNS disorders and kinase inhibitors for the treatment of cancers. Ambit plans to initiate clinical trials with its lead drug candidates for stroke in 2005 and oncology in early 2006. Ambit's proprietary technology, which has been validated through collaborations with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer and Roche, provides an unprecedented ability to identify, characterize, and quantify protein-small molecule interactions. Ambit has raised a total of nearly $51 million from investors including Perseus-Soros Biopharmaceutical Fund, Forward Ventures, Roche, Avalon Ventures, and GIMV NV.