The Kinetix technology will bolster Amgen's in-house rational drug design expertise with a discovery engine that can rapidly produce and optimize high quality lead compounds. We have made great strides with our existing small molecule program, and acquiring the Kinetix technology will advance our small molecule program. The addition of the Kinetix team, including President and CEO Nick Lydon, Ph.D., and David Armistead, Ph.D., vice president of research and development and chief scientific officer, will further strengthen our program. Amgen has established a comprehensive internal functional genomics program, which includes work on protein kinases. Protein kinases may represent the largest gene family in the human genome.
Protein kinases are master switches in many of the human body's biological cascades.
These enzymes are key regulators of communication within the cell and between the cell and its environment. Because of advances in small molecule drug discovery and rational drug design, researchers are now able to selectively and potently inhibit specific kinases. Protein kinases have emerged as key targets in drug discovery across a number of therapeutic areas. Kinetix has pioneered structural approaches to design and optimization of leads against multiple kinase targets in parallel. The ongoing financial impact of the transaction is expected to be minimal.