Progenra
The Competitive Advantage
At Progenra we believe that greater scrutiny of compounds in pre-clinical will ultimately increase clinical success rates. We devised strategies that allow our scientists to develop highly selective agents that home-in on novel molecular targets. For example, the human genome encodes approximately 100 de-ubiquitylase (DUB) genes, of which Progenra has expressed and characterized nearly 80 members of the de-ubiquitylase family which can be used in compound profiling. No other company has accomplished this task.
To date, Progenra has identified several unique structures that are highly selective anticancer agents. In addition, at least five other pre-clinical candidates are emerging for anti-inflammatory and metabolic disorder targets.
Progenra has also expressed and characterized over one dozen ubiquitin Ligases that are also subjected to HTS. One of the reasons for lack of success in identifying selective inhibitors for ubiquitin ligases is that screens do not faithfully represent ubiquitin ligation function. Progenra’s unique and proprietary assay platform faithfully mimics specific ligase functionality. The Progenra ligase drug discovery program is set apart from rest of the industry as it tests the ligase function of the protein as compared to competing assays that use the ligase ring finger as a structure to transfer ubiquitin to a target protein. Ligase selective compounds have been identified in proprietary screens for muscle wasting, diabetes and cancer