Any of several companies would love to add the cash, the potential royalty stream from OSIP-proprietary/OSIP-Solvay (one, not both), the potential milestones from OSIP-proprietary/OSIP-Solvay, the piece of automated FACS screening, and the capacity to write a release like this (from Acadia perspective). Why is this taking so long, Carl?
Thursday May 11, 12:06 pm Eastern Time
Company Press Release
SOURCE: ArQule, Inc.
ACADIA Pharmaceuticals and ArQule Inc. Enter
Licensing Agreement Covering Novel Serotonergic Lead Compounds
Successful Research Collaboration Yields Hundreds of GPCR-Selective Agonists
SAN DIEGO, and WOBURN, Mass., May 11 /PRNewswire/ -- ACADIA Pharmaceuticals and ArQule, Inc. (Nasdaq:
ARQL - news) announced today a licensing agreement for serotonergic lead compounds discovered in their ongoing research
collaboration. Under the terms of the license agreement, ACADIA will obtain rights to develop and commercialize drugs based
on these novel leads and will pay ArQule milestones and royalties. The companies will continue their pre- existing research
collaboration on several other gene-derived targets.
ArQule and ACADIA established their initial research collaboration in April 1998 to mine the chemical diversity of ArQule's
Mapping Array© compound library using ACADIA's integrated functional genomics platform for drug discovery. This
collaboration provided the opportunity to combine one of the industry's leading combinatorial chemistry libraries with
ACADIA's functional ultra high throughput Receptor Selection and Amplification Technology (R-SAT(TM)). This powerful
combination has resulted in the successful discovery of a large number of potent, and highly selective lead compounds, including
the serotonergic compounds being licensed under the new agreement.
``To address the research productivity challenge, the pharmaceutical industry has to accelerate the discovery of quality lead
molecules for the increasing number of potential new drug targets identified through the genomics effort,'' said Philippe Bey,
Ph.D., ArQule's Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President of R&D. ``We are very excited with the results of our
collaboration with ACADIA which demonstrates the power of high throughput chemical and biological technologies in drug
discovery and clearly validates our Mapping Array libraries as a source of quality lead compounds for various therapeutically
relevant targets of the GPCR gene family.''
As part of the initial collaboration between the companies, ACADIA has been actively profiling ArQule's Mapping Array
library of more than 500,000 compounds against a wide diversity of gene targets. In one multiplexed screen, nearly 200,000
compounds were tested by ACADIA for activation of six G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) using R-SAT(TM). From
that screen alone, nearly 1000 active compounds were identified, which were then functionally characterized for each of the
individual GPCRs. Several hundred of these compounds were confirmed to be active at individual serotonergic receptor
subtypes. High throughput pharmacology and profiling of the serotonergic compounds revealed multiple novel structure-activity
relationships (SARs) with low nanomolar potency and selectivity for each of the tested serotonergic targets.
``ACADIA's functional genomics platform has provided a critical link between large numbers of potential gene targets and
diverse chemical libraries to enable the rapid discovery of gene-specific lead compounds,'' remarked Mark R. Brann, Ph.D.,
ACADIA's President and Chief Scientific Officer. ``These new serotonergic compounds will complement ACADIA's broad
portfolio of internal discovery programs and enable us to expand the breadth of our existing neuropsychiatric programs to
include additional promising targets and drug candidates.''
ArQule offers products and services that improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the drug discovery process including
accelerated lead optimization services, novel, diverse screening libraries, and access to their high-throughput parallel synthesis
platform through technology licensing agreements. In addition, ArQule participates in joint discovery drug programs with
selected biotechnology and academic collaborators. For additional information, please visit www.arqule.com.
Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical are ``forward looking'' statements as defined in the Private
Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The actual results may differ from those projected in the forward looking statement
due to risks and uncertainties that exist in the Company's operations, development efforts and business environment. These
risks and uncertainties are described more fully in the Company's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December
31, 1999 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
ACADIA Pharmaceuticals is an emerging leader in genomics-based drug discovery. ACADIA has assembled an
evidence-based discovery platform that links a wide diversity of genomic and chemical information to generate gene- specific
small molecule drugs with improved side effect profiles. ACADIA has generated a portfolio of drug discovery programs
focused on neuropsychiatric and related disorders, and is commercializing this pipeline through licensing and discovery
collaborations with pharmaceutical partners. ACADIA also applies its functional genomics platform to the field of
pharmacogenomics through services offered by its wholly owned subsidiary, ACADIA PharmacoGenomics, Inc. The
Company's corporate headquarters and biological research facilities are located in San Diego, California; chemistry research
facilities are located in Copenhagen, Denmark. Additional information can be found on the Company's website at
www.acadia-pharm.com.
SOURCE: ArQule, Inc. |
