April 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Aurora Biosciences Corporation (Nasdaq: ABSC - news) and Integrative Proteomics(TM), Inc. (``IPI'') today announced that they have entered into a strategic alliance and license agreement for Aurora's high-throughput drug discovery capabilities based on Aurora's Big Biology(TM) and chemistry platforms to generate a set of approximately three and one-half million data points using IPI targets at Aurora's discovery facility over the next two years.
Under the terms of the agreement, Aurora has agreed to deploy its high- throughput Big Biology platform to rapidly generate biochemical and cell-based assays to screen IPI targets for IPI's structure-guided discovery programs. IPI will license Aurora's leading discovery technologies for pharmaceutical applications and will make an upfront technology access fee, license fees and annual research support payments to Aurora. Aurora will also capture downstream revenues from certain pharmaceutical products that may result from the use of Aurora's compounds and screens in the collaboration. In addition, Aurora will make a strategic equity investment in IPI's next equity financing. Financial details were not disclosed.
IPI will expand its integrated, multidisciplinary Pharmaceutical Proteomics(TM) Platform via its discovery alliance with Aurora. Under the terms of the alliance announced today, IPI will gain access to Aurora's proprietary collection of over 500,000 compounds through Aurora's screening of IPI targets. In addition, IPI will license a suite of Aurora's advanced, proprietary discovery technologies, including GFP functional genomic technologies and reporter systems for target-centric discovery for important classes of pharmaceutical targets, including kinases, phosphatases, proteases, nuclear receptors and GPCRs, as well as Aurora's Vivid(TM) fluorogenic substrates for ADME/Tox applications. The alliance also includes a collaboration on new protein-protein interaction technologies based on Aurora's leading reporter systems. IPI will collaborate with Aurora to determine structures of targets being pursued in Aurora's Big Biology initiative.
``We are very impressed with Integrative Proteomics' ability to link the function of proteins with their high-throughput 3D structure determination process in a drug discovery context. We are excited about the opportunity to work with IPI and to apply our Big Biology platform to IPI's targets,'' stated Stuart J.M. Collinson, Ph.D., Aurora's chairman, chief executive officer and president. ``The IPI alliance advances Aurora's continuing objective to expand its internal drug discovery capabilities through strategic collaborations with technology-rich biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies.''
``Aurora's Big Biology platform leads the industry in the capacity and efficiency it can bring to the discovery process and adds significant value to IPI's growing estate of discovery technologies for high-throughput interrogation of target function and structure,'' stated John D. Mendlein, Ph.D., Integrative Proteomics' chairman and chief executive officer. ``Aurora's drug discovery strengths and compound collections will rapidly jump- start our internal discovery efforts using IPI targets. We also welcome Aurora's future investment in IPI, and look forward to using the results of this alliance in our structure-guided discovery programs.''
Integrative Proteomics(TM) (``IPI'') accelerates the discovery of new medicines using its Pharmaceutical Proteomics(TM) Platform. Using leading structural proteomics technologies, IPI plans to build the world's first integrated, industrial platform for high-throughput pharmaceutical target function/structure interrogation using X-ray, NMR and mass spectrometry technologies from Bruker AXS, Bruker BioSpin and Bruker Daltonics, respectively. IPI's ProteoWorks(TM) Platform for rapid, parallel production of recombinant proteins from bioinformatic databases uses proprietary protein expression and purification processes based on IPI's advances in molecular biology and mass spectroscopy that eliminate many of the bottlenecks associated with conventional protein production systems. IPI's ProteoActive(TM) Platform monitors protein-protein interactions using a proprietary mass spectrometry system, which compiles functional information in a proprietary database to assess the function and therapeutic relevance of proteins in a cellular context. IPI's ProteoVision(TM) Platform uses proprietary NMR and X-ray crystallography systems to accelerate the determination of protein structure to guide small molecule design and library selection, hit selection and lead optimization. IPI has 45 employees, 70 percent with advanced degrees. IPI is located in Toronto, Canada and plans to open a U.S. site in the first half of 2001. IPI's investors include the Canadian-based venture firm of CC Capital Partners, Eastern Technology Seed Investment Fund and Lombard Odier of Switzerland... |
