Tularik & CRL Sign Discovery Chemistry Agreement; CRL's Chemistry Applied to Tularik's Discovery Research Efforts
SAN DIEGO, Dec. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- CRL (ChemBridge Research Laboratories), LLC today announced entering into a two-year agreement with Tularik Inc. (Nasdaq: TLRK - news) with the objective to apply CRL's discovery chemistry platform to Tularik's research for the discovery of novel therapeutic agents.
Under the terms of the agreement, CRL will, on a non-exclusive basis, be responsible for providing Targeted Combinatorial Libraries that are specifically designed to map binding-site recognition features of a certain target family. Tularik has the option to profit from CRL's instant and exclusive hit-to-lead follow-up activities. CRL will receive a technology access fee and success-based milestone payments. Tularik will also have the opportunity to expand the collaboration for additional target families. Other terms were not disclosed.
``Tularik has used ChemBridge's PHARMACOPHORE LIBRARY for over a year and we have been consistently satisfied with the high quality in library design, sample purity, and responsiveness of ChemBridge to Tularik's needs when following up on HTS hits identified in ChemBridge libraries,'' said Juan C. Jaen, Ph.D., Vice President, Chemistry at Tularik. ``Based on this comfort level with ChemBridge, Tularik has decided to enter into a new phase of our collaboration. CRL will design and prepare libraries of compounds targeted towards a specific family of cellular receptors,'' Dr. Jaen continued. ``The new agreement anticipates the possibility of utilizing CRL's lead optimization capabilities following Tularik's identification of specific HTS hits.''
``In order to develop the most advanced Targeted Libraries, CRL has built on the diverse chemistries as well as the novel library synthesis and purification methods utilized in ChemBridge's PHARMACOPHORE LIBRARY. On top of these methods we have drawn from the most recent advances in structural biochemistry and medicinal chemistry to apply pharmacophore design methods,'' stated Thomas R. Webb, Ph.D., Executive Director, Chemistry at both ChemBridge and CRL. ``These fundamentally important achievements allow for the construction of lead-like libraries with intermediate synthon collections that facilitate drug-like follow-up libraries, in an iterative fashion. Targeted Libraries from CRL will make it practical for Tularik scientists to fully explore the relevant target-based pharmacophore space, and we believe, to speed the process of the discovery of new drug entities.'' ``We are delighted to expand our partnership with Tularik, a company whose broad and innovative research is evident in several therapeutic areas. The agreement with Tularik is a significant step in recognizing CRL as an innovative collaborator and service provider in drug discovery chemistry. We are confident that our unique approach in the design of these Targeted Libraries will stimulate further interest from drug researchers worldwide'', stated Michael Schultz, Ph.D., President and Chief Scientific Officer of CRL.
CRL ( www.chembridgeresearch.com ) is a discovery chemistry company based in San Diego. Started as a spin-off of ChemBridge Corporation, it is leveraging its resources and technologies to build a world-class research organization geared towards addressing the major chemistry bottlenecks of high-throughput drug discovery in the post-genomic era.
ChemBridge Corporation ( www.chembridge.com ), headquartered in San Diego, CA, is an established, innovative provider of premium quality chemistry tools for small molecule drug discovery. Over 225 clients have taken advantage of ChemBridge's discovery chemistry portfolio, including all major pharmaceutical companies in the United States, Europe and Japan... |
