Plex (Latin for fold) Pharmaceuticals - formerly dba CalAsia Pharmaceuticals - is an early-stage biotechnology company focused on drug discovery involving diseases caused by protein misfolding: ALS, Parkinsonâs disease and cataracts. Plex was originally organized around acceleration seminal academic discoveries into safe and effective treatments for unmet and under-served medical needs with a focus on neurodegenerative disorders. With funding from the Michael J.Fox Foundation to support its efforts in fragment-based screening and structure-based drug design, Plexâs ALS effort structured around the work of Yale University School of Medicine's Dr. Arthur Horwich - one of the co-discoverers of the protein chaperone machinery, for which he received a Lasker Award. With NIH support, Plex Pharmaceuticals also worked on a development program for Dengue, West Nile and Zika antiviral drugs and worked on a novel brain-penetrant heat shock protein 90 (HSP90) inhibitor for glioblastoma. Focused on the rapid discovery of drug-like small molecules, Plex's core technology platform effectively combines functional fragment screening with X-ray crystallography co-crystallization guided by a streamlined structure-based design approach to design and synthesize New Chemical Entities (NCEs) with drug-like properties. For closely related target isotypes, Plex employs a differential fragment screening method as a powerful tool to identify highly isotype-selective and pan inhibitors to improve therapeutic efficacy. In August 2017, the firm was acquired by Collidon for an undisclosed amount but remains SBIR eligible. Under the deal, Collidion delivers management and operational support to boost Plex Pharmaceuticalsâ drug discovery prog
