Innovative compounds
Selvita develops its own innovative drugs, which originate from research at Polish universities and later out-licenses them to the customers from the pharmaceutical industry. Selvita is involved in the research projects up to the pre-clinical stage. Our current projects are in the area of oncology, central nervous system, infections and diagnostics. In future we will also be involved in projects in other therapeutic areas.
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Current research programs at Selvita

SEL24 program

Pim kinases are one of the most interesting new therapeutic targets which are being currently researched by the biggest pharmaceutical companies in the world. According to the most recent literature reviews  Pim kinases are strongly related to the process of oncogenesis and development of leukemias, prostate cancer, breast cancer, pancreatic cancer, renal cancer and glioblastomas. Pim kinases are downstream in the signaling pathways of several oncogenes like FLT3-ITD, Bcr-Abl or Jak2 and play important role in oncogenic transformation. Thus, Pim kinases emerged as targets of significant importance for therapeutic intervention in various indications. 
Apart from being overexpressed in many cancer types, the level of these kinase expression correlates with tumor aggressiveness and metastasis  formation, as well as it is a marker of poor prognosis

SEL24 is a group of compounds which are specific inhibitors of Pim-1 kinase. The best leads from this group are potentially first in class specific  Pim-1 inhibitors, which inhibit Pim-1 kinase in low nanomolar concentration (IC50 < 10nM). Pim-1 inhibition goes along with high anti-tumor activity in vitro on tumor cell lines. 

Compounds from the SEL24 group have been extensively tested in vitro on several cell lines, showing cytotoxic effect in estrogen resistant breast cancer cells, hematopoietic cancers and various other solid tumors. Moreover these compounds also potentiate the cytotoxic activity of gold standards compounds in two leukemia cell lines.

These substances have been shown effective also in vivo in mouse xenograft models . The lead compound, SEL24-1 has shown antitumor activity in vivo in 4 different mouse xenograft models of estrogen resistant breast cancer cells, hematopoietic cancers and other solid tumors. Moreover, preliminary results show that SEL24-1 is safe and non toxic in non-neoplastic cells and tissues in vitro and in vivo.

SEL24 program is currently in the lead optimisation phase, and first-in-human application is planned for 2011.

If you are interested in this opportunity please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .