Company Profile

Phenex is a privately financed biotechnology company that focuses on developing novel drug candidates that act on Nuclear Receptors, a pharmacologically well accepted drug target class. Phenex Pharmaceuticals AG was founded in 2002 and is located in Ludwigshafen, Germany.

Proprietary Drug Discovery progams

Phenex currently pursues two proprietary drug discovery programs on the emerging drug targets FXR and LXR. The focus here is on metabolic and liver diseases where currently no or insufficient treatment is available. Phenex intends to partner these programs with pharmaceutical companies after showing proof-of-concept in man.

In its most advanced program Phenex has developed a proprietary FXR agonist, Px-101, as a new therapeutic approach for an oral treatment of Type II Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome. The compound is currently in preclinical development and Phenex plans to advance this compound into Phase I clinical development by early 2010.

Disocvery Services on Nuclear Receptors

Nuclear Receptors are ligand-activated transcription factors which usually show a broad pharmacological impact at the expense of a high level of unwanted side effects. Preferred Nuclear Receptor ligands are therefore selective and partial modulators, so called SNuRMs (Selective Nuclear Receptor Modulators) that retain the intended pharmacological effect whereas unwanted side effects are minimized. Until now, no rational approach to discover such selective and partial modulators or SNuRMs has been available for collaborative research in drug discovery. Addressing this unmet discovery need, Phenex has established a specific rationale, the SNuRM® Approach, that allows now for the first time a directed search for selective and partial modulators with a desired profile. The technological basis for this approach is based on a worldwide unmatched set of Nuclear Receptor clones and assays, the NR Resource.

Phenex is offering its resources and capabilities in the field of Nuclear Receptors to customers within the pharmaceutical industry under its business unit Discovery Services, ranging from contract screening services up to integrated research collaborations. You will find in Phenex a reliable partner for Nuclear Receptor drug discovery. Our references encompass more than 50 international pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in Europe, Japan and North America.