GSK's SIRTainty

The planned $720 million cash acquisition of Sirtris Pharmaceuticals Inc. by GlaxoSmithKline plc extends the big biology land grabs of recent years to the field of sirtuins, a class of histone deacetylases with diverse but as-yet poorly understood roles in disease biology. The challenge now is to sort out which sirtuins are druggable targets, for what indications and in what manner.

The deal will combine GSK's own sirtuin drug discovery program with Sirtris' discovery platform, IP and next-generation compounds that improve on the biotech's initial clinical stage-candidate, SRT501. SRT501 is a formulation of the natural compound resveratrol whose reported mode of action has generated some debate in the academic literature...