|
||
| |||||||
|
London, UK, February 9, 2004
-- Inpharmatica Ltd, the selective drug discovery company, announced today
that it has entered into an ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism, and
excretion) agreement with Cellzome AG, a private drug discovery company with a
focus on chronic diseases, to support its internal drug discovery programs.
Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Under the agreement,
Inpharmatica will provide Cellzome with its full range of ADME services,
including ADME lead optimization, in vitro ADME screening, in silico
evaluation of chemical libraries and project consultancy. Inpharmatica will
also help Cellzome build its own capability to allow it to carry out key ADME
assays in-house.
Commenting on the announcement, Dr Mike Tarbit, Senior VP of Preclinical R & D at Inpharmatica, said: "We are delighted to announce that Cellzome, one of the world's leading exponents of the application chemical proteomics and pathway technology to drug discovery, is entering into this relationship with Inpharmatica. Our ADME group is ideally structured to meet the increasing needs for lead optimization in all sectors of the industry. This latest partnership endorses our view that we can provide fully flexible solutions for ADME services to companies such as Cellzome, that are rapidly transitioning into integrated drug discovery businesses." Commenting on the announcement, Dr Nigel Ramsden, Director of Chemistry at Cellzome, said: "Inpharmatica will provide Cellzome with a flexible approach to ADME lead optimization which addresses our immediate needs whilst taking into consideration our planned drug discovery expansion. We are confident that Inpharmatica's recognized expertise in ADME will help us both to deliver our short-term need in optimization and to achieve our mid-term infrastructural goals."
About Cellzome (www.cellzome.com)
Cellzome is a drug discovery company building an R & D pipeline in chronic diseases, with a primary focus on Alzheimer's disease. Cellzome is leveraging its powerful drug proteomics engine to generate an ongoing pipeline, both for in-house drug development and through partnership. Cellzome's unique combination of chemical proteomics and pathway expansion enables more efficient drug discovery by focusing on the interface between validated disease pathways, tractable medicinal chemistry and druggable targets. This approach is being applied to enable the efficient discovery of new medicines for chronic human diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.
An international team of
approximately 100 employees based in Heidelberg, Germany and London, UK, is
building a strong pipeline of drug candidates. Founded at the European
Molecular Biology Laboratories (EMBL) in May 2000, Cellzome has combined
scientific leadership with experienced pharmaceutical management.
About Inpharmatica (www.inpharmatica.com)
Inpharmatica Ltd is a selective drug discovery company that is applying its expertise in structural and computational biology, and medicinal chemistry to the identification of quality drug targets, chemical leads and drug candidates, thereby reducing attrition in the drug discovery process. The Company's lead discovery program is focused upon the development of 16 novel Nuclear Receptors ("NR's"), a family of proteins widely considered to be both druggable and of high therapeutic interest. Drugs targeted against NR's generate more than $10bn in sales annually. Inpharmatica's novel NR's represent a more than a 30% increase on those identified in the public domain.
The Company's technology platform,
PharmaCarta[TM], is applied internally and available to collaborative
partners. It's a flexible and integrated chemogenomics suite that links
genomic and proteomic space with chemistry, and provides a unique approach to
hit identification, lead generation and drug optimization for druggable
targets. This platform utilizes the massive computing power of the Company's
2,500- processor compute farm, one of the largest in the world. Biopendium[TM]
and ADME services, both integral parts of PharmaCarta[TM] are also available
stand-alone. The Company has sales and collaboration partnerships with leading
biotech and pharma companies including Serono, Pfizer, Daiichi, Riken,
Galapagos, Aventis, UCB Pharma and Genentech.
Founded in 1998, Inpharmatica's technology is based on research from Professor Janet Thornton's group at University College London. The Company employs some 100 staff at its UK locations in London and on the Cambridge Science Park. To date the Company has raised some £34.6m from leading venture capitalists including Unibio, 3i, GIMV, Dresdner Kleinwort Capital, Advent Venture Partners, Abingworth Mgt, Gilde Investment, Vertex Mgt and Genentech Inc.
For information about
Inpharmatica:
Andrew Lloyd Andrew Lloyd & Associates +44 1273 675100
Art Jannicelli
Andrew Lloyd & Associates Brighton Business Centre 95 Ditchling Road Brighton BN1 4ST United Kingdom Tel: +44-1273 675100 Fax: +44-1273 675400 email: Art@ala.com 55 rue Boissonade 75014 Paris France Tel: +33-1 56 54 07 00 Fax: +33-1 56 54 07 01 email: ala-france@ala.com (For ALA Paris office only) http://www.ala.com INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGY MARKETS STRATEGY & COMMUNICATIONS |
|
| ||||||||