Bionaut: Fast track pathways

By employing a pathway-based approach to drug discovery, with a focus on cancer and inflammation, Bionaut Pharmaceuticals Inc. hopes to avoid the dead ends that have plagued conventional target-based methods. The company will soon enter the clinic with compounds screened using its Sentinel Pathway Reporter System.

The Sentinel system works by introducing, at an endogenous site, a reporter gene that illuminates in response to ligand-triggered modulation of a selected pathway. It indicates whether and when a molecule acts on a desired pathway...