Clients & Testimonials

Clients

Argenta works with a wide variety of companies of differing sizes and geographic locations. Some examples of recent clients are listed below.

• Genentech (South San Francisco, USA)
  In the course of six major drug discovery collaborations, scientists from Argenta and Genentech are applying their expertise in medicinal and computational chemistry, biochemistry and DMPK to discover NCEs acting against undisclosed drug targets.
• AstraZeneca (USA, Sweden and UK)
  Argenta has provided discovery research capabilities to various groups within AstraZeneca. The most recent project involves a team of scientists from the two companies collaborating to identify long acting muscarinic (M3) antagonists (LAMAs) and dual acting muscarinic antagonist-beta2 agonist (MABA) candidate drugs.
• Corcept Therapeutics (Menlo Park, CA, USA)
  Corcept and Argenta are collaborating to discover novel antagonists of the Glucocorticoid receptor for the treatment of Cushing's syndrome, psychotic depression as well as metabolic diseases including diabetes, obesity and hypertension. Using their medicinal chemistry, assay development and screening, CADD and ADME capabilities, Argenta has delivered three distinct patented series, and a first development candidate CORT108297 entered Phase I trials in Q1 2010. In animal models, CORT108297 has demonstrated the ability to prevent and reverse weight gain caused by treatment with multiple anti-psychotic drug regimens.
• Almac Discovery (Craigavon, UK)
  Scientists from Argenta and Almac worked together to advance one of Almac's cancer programmes. Argenta provided medicinal chemistry, CADD and ADME services and know-how, and Almac contributed medicinal chemistry, biochemistry and in vitro screening capabilities and expertise.
• Zafgen (Cambridge, USA)
  Scientists from the two companies are exploiting Argenta's expertise in medicinal and computational chemistry, biochemistry, in vitro screening, and DMPK to accelerate development candidate nomination for one of Zafgen's innovative therapeutics programmes for obesity.
• BioTie Therapies Corp. (Turku, Finland)
  During a lead optimisation collaboration, scientists from the two companies exploited Argenta's expertise in medicinal and computational chemistry to advance one of BioTie's novel therapeutics programmes towards development candidate nomination.
• CellCentric (Cambridge, UK)
  Under the terms of the agreement, scientists from the two companies are exploiting Argenta's expertise in virtual screening, molecular biology, biochemical assay development and in vitro screening to discover inhibitors for a number of potential epigenetic-related therapeutic targets.
• Novartis
  In a two-year drug discovery collaboration, an integrated team of Argenta and Novartis scientists worked on a programme that centred on the search for new diabetes therapies.

Testimonials

"Argenta has made a major contribution to our discovery program. We surveyed many possibilities for partnering our medicinal chemistry including groups in Europe, China, and India, and chose Argenta for the quality of their proposal, the calibre of their leadership, and the cost-effectiveness of their work. As a more virtual company we really rely on our partners for input and direction. Their extensive pharmaceutical industry experience has proven to be invaluable to moving our program forward. They have allowed us to integrate most of our discovery efforts – including chemistry, biology and ADME - under one roof, resulting in very efficient data turnaround and speedy decision making. They have hit all of the project milestones on time or ahead of schedule. I couldn’t imagine we would be as far along if we partnered with anyone else."

"We chose to work with Argenta on our collaborative drug discovery programme as from our first meeting they demonstrated attention to scientific detail, were extremely pro-active in assessing opportunities, and turned proposals around quickly. As the collaboration developed, the overriding sense was that Argenta consistently delivered, in terms of overcoming chemistry challenges to allow delivery of final compounds, in highlighting druggability issues with compounds, and in designing and synthesising new targets to test and overcome these issues. The team was extremely professional in its approach, very pragmatic with regard to drug discovery, and productive. The interpersonal aspects of the relationship were excellent, and it was an extremely enjoyable, as well as productive collaboration. Argenta's strapline is innovation..., expertise..., delivered, and I think this summarises very well the strengths of Argenta, and the value which we derived from working with them"

"Argenta Discovery has been a terrific partner in every facet of our discovery chemistry work. They did careful, creative work on time and on budget. In addition to having great bench chemists, their business process emphasizes clear and continuous communication, which was helpful at every stage. In our specific case, they solved a chemistry problem that had stumped many large companies and led to three patented series of new chemical entities. I cannot imagine a better vendor!"

"I have had the pleasure of working with Argenta as part of a drug discovery research collaboration. The project entails complex synthetic chemistry and molecular modeling, and involves the need for a wide range of pharmacology and ADME assays/models. Argenta not only brought these capabilities under one roof but also brought a level of expertise, understanding, reliability and professionalism that has permitted rapid progress toward our goals. After working at both big pharma and with biotech, I can attest that the experience with Argenta offers the best of both."