Blueprint Medicines Announces First Collaboration with Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center

Leveraging Sanger Institute’s extensive cell panel to identify novel cancer targets using Blueprint Medicines’ broad set of ultra-selective kinase inhibitors

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Blueprint Medicines, a company harnessing the understanding of the molecular blueprint of cancer to develop personalized, highly-selective cancer therapies, today announced its first collaboration with Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center. The collaboration will focus on a large collection of Blueprint’s next-generation, highly-selective kinase inhibitor compounds, utilizing the Sanger Institute and Mass. General’s extensive human cancer cell line panel that will enable discoveries of novel cancer targets and new cancer dependencies.

“Blueprint Medicines is building a pipeline of next-generation kinase inhibitors focused on specific genetic abnormalities”

“Blueprint Medicines has built a novel kinase library from scratch that will allow us to interrogate the human kinome. Sanger Institute researchers will leverage our expertise in understanding the dependencies of the cancer cell lines utilizing Blueprint’s compounds as unique tools to further interrogate our extensive cell panel,” said Ultan McDermott, Ph.D., principal investigator of this collaboration at Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. “This is the first time that such a broad screen across the kinome is possible with such selective compounds. We look forward to working with Blueprint Medicines to identify novel cancer targets that are so desperately needed by the biopharmaceutical industry.”

In collaboration with the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, the Sanger Institute has built an extensive panel of over 1,200 cancer cell lines used to screen compounds and evaluate their activity toward particular cancer targets. Blueprint Medicines will contribute kinase inhibitors, addressing more than 60 unique targets, with unmatched selectivity for this collaboration. The company is building a robust pre-clinical pipeline of novel programs that are generated by its proprietary genomics platform and pioneering kinase inhibitor library. Utilizing its broad kinase inhibitor library will enable the identification of novel targets that will form the basis of new programs.

“Blueprint Medicines is building a pipeline of next-generation kinase inhibitors focused on specific genetic abnormalities,” said Chris Varma, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Blueprint Medicines. “Our discovery process begins with a genomic blueprint of specific patient populations and the utilization of our proprietary genomics platform which rapidly identifies novel targets and potential combination partners. We have now built a pioneering chemical library of novel compounds that covers the majority of the kinome, some of which to be used in this collaboration, with selectivity that far surpasses prior generations of kinase inhibitors. We are excited to form a collaboration with the Sanger Institute to identify novel cancer targets and better understand cancer dependencies.”

About Blueprint Medicines

Blueprint Medicines is a patient-driven company building a pipeline of exquisitely selective and tailored next-generation kinase drugs against genetic abnormalities. Using the molecular blueprint of genetically-defined patient populations and a proprietary genomics platform, Blueprint is rapidly identifying novel targets and combinations. Blueprint deploys a library of novel compounds that covers a majority of the human kinome, as highly selective starting points for drug development programs as well as tool compounds. Blueprint Medicines was founded by a proven team, including the developers of Gleevec®, and is backed by leading venture firms, Third Rock Ventures and Fidelity Biosciences. For more information, please visit the company’s website at www.blueprintmedicines.com.