The US pharma firm will present results from its Anti-cancer Screening Apoptosis Platform (ASAP) today at the IBC conference on Assays and Cellular Targets in California.

The technology has been used to develop compounds that target the Myc oncogene pathway. Degregulation of Myc is lined to the development of several different types of cancer but has traditionally been a difficult target for drug developers, according to Epicept.

Scientists at Epicept approach drug discovery from a chemical genetics perspective to investigate how a small molecule drug candidates affect the cellular activity of a protein.

Using this approach with a live cell high-throughput caspase-3 screening assay, they can see the cellular activity of a drug candidate and how it relates to apoptosis. Caspases are protease enzymes that have been dubbed the 'executioner' in a cell.

Any hits are then optimised using structure-activity relationship studies and other medicinal chemistry approaches before a candidate molecule is chosen and advanced to preclinical studies.

Almost any cell type can be used in ASAP and it can measure caspase activation inside multiple cell types (e.g., cancer cells, immune cells, or cell lines from different organ systems or genetically engineered cells).

Epicept claims the final choice "is highly efficacious in vivo in Myc deregulated tumour models."

The ASAP technology has also identified two anticancer drug candidates currently in clinical development, EPC2407 in Phase I and Azixa in Phase II trials, the latter of which was out-licensed to Myriad Genetics.