Parking OLD pr:
ACADIA Pharmaceuticals and ArQule Inc. Enter Licensing
2000-05-11 12:21 (New York)
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) 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(R)
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. |
