Exelixis and Scios to Collaborate on High Throughput Drug Screening Library
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. and SUNNYVALE, Calif., Oct. 8 /PRNewswire/ -- Exelixis, Inc. (Nasdaq: EXEL - news) and Scios Inc. (Nasdaq: SCIO - news) have entered into an agreement to jointly design a custom high-throughput screening (HTS) compound library, which Exelixis will synthesize and qualify. Each party retains rights to use the compounds in its own unique drug discovery programs.
The four-year agreement calls for Exelixis to use its proprietary combinatorial chemistry platform to enable the two companies to generate a large, high-quality library of small-molecules to use in their respective HTS efforts. Scios will pay Exelixis a per-compound fee and an upfront technology access fee. In addition to retaining rights to use the compounds for internal drug discovery efforts, both parties will also be able to use the compounds in their collaborative efforts with third parties.
``This collaboration will expand Scios' capability to develop cutting-edge therapeutics for inflammatory and cardiovascular diseases,'' said George Schreiner, M.D. Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Scios Inc. ``Scios has developed highly effective technology for identifying kinases and phosphatases that are critical to disease pathways, manufacturing them for use in high throughput screening systems, and developing targeted, small molecule therapeutics to inhibit them. The compounds from this collaboration will add to our small molecule technology platform focused on kinase inhibitors.''
Geoffrey Duyk, M.D., Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Exelixis said, ``Following our recent agreement with Elan, this collaboration provides an additional demonstration of the quality of compounds generated by our drug discovery group. These relationships subsidize the cost of generating our large chemical libraries while providing our partners with high quality, cost-effective compounds. We are committed to becoming a leader in small molecule drug discovery and in fact, this year alone we have screened over 15 assays, and are on track to identify our first development compound by the end of the year.''
Scios Inc.
Scios is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel treatments for cardiovascular and inflammatory disease. The Company's disease-based technology platform integrates expertise in protein biology with computational and medicinal chemistry to identify novel targets and rationally design small molecule compounds for large markets with unmet medical needs.
Exelixis, Inc.
Exelixis, Inc. is a leading genomics-based drug discovery company focused on product development through its expertise in comparative genomics and model system genetics. These technologies provide a rapid, efficient and cost effective way to move from DNA sequence data to knowledge about the function of genes and the proteins they encode. The company's technology is broadly applicable to all life sciences industries including pharmaceutical, diagnostic, agricultural biotechnology and animal health. Exelixis has partnerships with Aventis CropScience, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Elan Pharmaceuticals, Pharmacia, Protein Design Labs and Dow AgroSciences, and is building its internal development program in the area of oncology. For more information, please visit the company's web site at www.exelixis.com.
Exelixis generates novel, genetically and biologically validated targets through its expertise in model system genetics. By combining these novel targets with the efficient HTS platform, large compound library, parallel downstream assays and integrated chemistry capabilities, Exelixis believes it will have maximum opportunity for success to develop a portfolio of potentially innovative drugs against a variety of novel targets, initially in the area of cancer... |
