TargetEx llc, Budapest announced today that the Research Directorate General of the Commission of the European Communities approved the transfer of the coordinator responsibilities of the European Cancer Research Consortium (CancerGrid) to TargetEx.

"This is very important for TargetEx" -an emerging biotech company in Hungary - "and an appreciation of our scientific potential " said Sandor Cseh, PhD., managing director. "We are excited to lead the consortium in the remaining phase of the project and we look forward to the exploitation of the exciting results and experience gathered in the effort of developing novel technologies and agents for cancer therapy."

"The CancerGrid consortium is an excellent combination of 11 European research-oriented companies and academic centers integrating their best practices and specific knowledge including AMRI (USA/Hungary), Inte:Ligand (Austria), Tallinn University of Technology (Estonia), University of Helsinki (Finland), GKI Economic Research Co.(Hungary), Computer and Automation Research Institute (Hungary), DAC Srl and University of Bari (Italy), University Pompeu Fabra (Spain) and Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Israel)" added Istvan Bagyi, PhD., the project coordinator of CancerGrid.

Cancer is one of the major causes of death worldwide and developing successful therapies is particularly challenging due to the high variability of cells, oncogenes and mutations. Developing tumor-cell specific cytotoxic agents is not only one of the aims of the CancerGrid project but also a "gentle" approache since they will attack only the cancer cells while not affecting the healthy cellular functions.

"The primary objective of the multidisciplinary FP6 project is to integrate various state-of-the art technologies including TargetEx' high-throughput differential cytotoxicity screening platform; in silico compound library selection methods and QSAR model building accelerated with distributed (grid) computing techniques. The ultimate goal of the project is to develop novel anti-cancer lead candidates together with a novel applicable research model which could cut the expenses and shorten the timeline of anti-cancer drug discovery" gave further details Gyorgy Dorman, PhD. the scientific coordinator of CancerGrid.

"Entering the anticancer research through leading this consortium corresponds to our strategic plan to extend the established molecular biology and assay development experience towards complex drug discovery research" concluded Dr. Cseh.

For further information, please visit the official web site of the CancerGrid project at http://www.cancergrid.eu as well as the TargetEx website: http://www.targetex.com. The project is partially financed by the Commission of the European Communities under the project number of LSHC-CT-2006-037559.

TargetEx (formerly known as RecomGenex) was founded in 2002. Currently it is an independent company offering complex services in the early phase of drug discovery. Core competences of the company are protein expression, cell and target-based assay development and HT screening. TargetEx offers to clients 'off the shelf' services and collaborative research and development.

TargetEx recently launched a Hungarian Fragment Based Drug Discovery Consortium. The consortium is composed of two Hungarian biotech companies and a leading University division.