Bionomics Developing Cancer Drug Target BNO69

Australian drug company Bionomics announced that its proprietary cancer drug target, BNO69, will progress to the next stage of development following the Cooperative Research Center for Cancer Therapeutics’ (CRC–CT) decision to support the program.

The CRC said it will provide Bionomics with resources to undertake the work.

BNO69 is a protein that is over-expressed in endothelial cells that line the walls of blood vessels within solid tumors.

Inhibitors of BNO69 expression disrupt the function of endothelial cells in tumors and by doing so; inhibit the formation of new blood vessels within and around existing tumor vessels, the company said.

According to the company, the BN069 program supported by the CRC will involve a series of steps to identify, develop and optimize a drug candidate as a treatment for cancer.

These steps include high throughput screening to identify an inhibitory compound that blocks the BNO69 target, medicinal chemistry and biological activity testing to further optimize compounds to derive a clinical candidate, the company added.