Cloud-based drug development firm Cloud Pharmaceuticals has made an agreement with muscle health-focused bionutrition company MYOS to investigate small molecule candidates that could inhibit targets in the myostatin regulatory pathway as well as inflammatory mediators linked to sarcopenia (age-related muscle loss) and cachexia (wasting syndrome). MYOS will have the rights to the design and structure of any small molecules developed for the muscle-health treatment market per this agreement.

New Jersey-based MYOS says it tapped Cloud Pharmaceuticals to design and synthesize small molecules relevant to Furin regulation and Janus Kinase 3 (JAK3) inhibition, both of which are potential targets. MYOS adds that candidates created through this agreement will be its first small molecules to be considered for further development as treatments for sarcopenia as well as cachexia. The firm anticipates reporting on the initial testing with Furin convertase by the end of 2015. 

Robert C. Ashton, Jr., M.D., MYOS' CMO, said in a statement that the firm believes Cloud Pharmaceuticals' cloud computing-based drug design platform could greatly speed up its drug development program. “Cloud Pharmaceuticals’ unique technology has the ability to rapidly create and test novel molecules reducing both the time and cost of traditional drug development,” he commented.

MYOS is also the owner of MYO-T12, which the firm claims to be the first clinically demonstrated natural myostatin inhibitor. Earlier this week, the firm appointed J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., the founder and CEO of Synthetic Genomics, to its board of directors.

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