Cyclacel's Cell Cycle Research Boosted By £1.2 ($1.9) Million In Grants

Three programmes focus on new drugs targeting mitosis

DUNDEE, UK - 14 October 2002 - Cyclacel Limited, the UK-based biopharmaceutical company, announced today that it was awarded £1.2 million ($1.9 million) in UK Government grants to support research into novel anticancer drugs. The grants relate to work aimed at disrupting cancer mitosis, the process by which cancer cells divide. Cyclacel’s scientists are engaged in the validation of large numbers of antimitotic drug targets generated by a large-scale genomic screening effort.

Spiro Rombotis, Chief Executive of Cyclacel, said, “These grants recognise the excellence of Cyclacel’s scientists. The gene identification and target validation aspects of our drug discovery process are crucial initial elements of our genes-to-drugs approach. The integration of this cutting-edge technology with our rational drug design capabilities is resulting in a growing pipeline of clinical and preclinical stage programmes. The strength of our business model is based on our strategic commitment to build an innovative and renewable drug discovery pipeline.”

An initial award was made under the UK Government’s applied genomics LINK scheme and was part of a joint grant application by Cyclacel and the Department of Genetics at Cambridge University. Cyclacel was awarded a grant of £450,000 ($704,000) supporting work conducted at Cyclacel’s Cambridge-based Polgen division encompassing a genome-wide screen in the Drosophila fruit fly to identify genes involved in mitosis. As a result of the same LINK scheme application, the Department of Genetics at Cambridge University was awarded a grant of £330,000 ($516,000) by BBSRC (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council) to support collaborative work, in which Cyclacel has exclusive commercialisation rights.

Cyclacel received a further award of £450,000 ($704,000) from the Scottish Executive under the SpurPlus scheme. This Scottish Government scheme supports highly innovative research and will enable Cyclacel to accelerate the development of new drugs acting on cell mitosis by using sophisticated, high throughput, rational drug design processes. In addition, the SpurPlus grant will help Cyclacel industrialise the processes that are capable of handling the large amount of data generated by its genomic screening programme.

"This is a great opportunity for an academic-industrial collaboration aiming to exploit the entire genome sequence of the fruit fly model organism,” commented Professor David Glover, Chief Scientist, Polgen Division. “What this means is that we can get closer to identifying the key genes in the cancer process much more rapidly, because the same genes that regulate cell division throughout evolution also regulate progression through the cell cycle and monitor DNA damage in flies and in humans. However, a more convenient experimental system and the absence of gene duplication in fly cells provides a more rapid and powerful way to study genes that go awry in cancer than is possible with human cells. We anticipate that in our collaboration with Cambridge University, the academic lab’s deep understanding of this fundamental biological process compliments Polgen’s high throughput procedures to rapidly and efficiently arrive at validated anticancer drug targets.”

Professor Sir David Lane, Chief Scientific Officer of Cyclacel said, “These awards exemplify Cyclacel’s long-standing objective of collaborating with world-leading academic groups to accelerate the discovery of novel anticancer drugs emerging from the biological understanding of cell cycle gene mechanisms. Government can play an important role in this process by supporting such collaborations resulting in the commercial exploitation of academic discoveries.”

Cyclacel is a biopharmaceutical company that designs and develops small molecule drugs that act on key cell cycle regulators to stop uncontrolled cell division in cancer and other diseases involving abnormal cell proliferation. The Company’s discovery engines integrate core cell cycle expertise with a large library of proprietary gene-based targets, state-of-the-art molecular biology and computational chemistry to rapidly deliver new drug candidates. Cyclacel has five research and development programs underway. Most advanced is CYC202, a Cyclin Dependent Kinase (CDK) inhibitor, currently in Phase Ib trials for cancer. CYC202 has also completed a Phase I trial in healthy volunteers and is being explored for use in glomerulonephritis, a disease of renal cell proliferation. The Company has a corporate alliance with AstraZeneca to develop a specific Cyclin Groove Inhibitor (CGI) for cancer.