Sygnature Discovery Successfully Provides Clinical Candidate to Corcept Therapeutics

Sygnature Discovery, a company which undertakes integrated drug discovery projects for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies worldwide, today announced that it has successfully delivered a clinical candidate to Corcept Therapeutics Incorporated (NASDAQ: CORT), a pharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery, development and commercialisation of drugs that treat severe metabolic, oncologic and psychiatric disorders by modulating the effects of cortisol.

CORT125134, a next generation selective glucocorticoid receptor antagonist in clinical development for the treatment of Cushing’s syndrome and certain cancers, was synthesized and tested at Sygnature during a long-term integrated drug discovery collaboration with Corcept.  CORT125134 has recently completed a first-in-man clinical trial at Quotient Clinical.  The compound was found to be safe and well tolerated at the doses tested in healthy volunteers and pharmacological effect was demonstrated.

“CORT125134 has great therapeutic potential,” said Dr. Hazel Hunt, Corcept’s Vice President of Research. “During a productive collaboration that has spanned several years, Sygnature Discovery has carried out first class medicinal and synthetic chemistry and in vitro biology work. The commitment, flexibility and communication skills of the Sygnature scientists allowed us to quickly identify promising lead candidates, of which CORT125134 is the most advanced. We are looking forward to its further development.”

Dr Simon Hirst, Founder and CEO, Sygnature Discovery said: “The discovery collaboration between Corcept and Sygnature has been extremely successful producing CORT125134. I am proud of the significant contribution made by Sygnature’s scientists to Corcept’s R&D activities.  The success of this project demonstrates our ability to create considerable value for our clients by delivering novel compounds which can be advanced into the clinic.  We look forward to continuing working with Corcept in the future, and wish them every success with progressing the clinical development of CORT125134.”