<A> ArQule Advances Product Discovery Collaborations With Major Corporate Collaborators
SAN FRANCISCO -- ArQule, Inc. (Nasdaq: ARQL) today announced that the Company has advanced its collaborative projects with pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agrochemical, and bioseparations companies to the point where 10 new compounds have entered the pre-clinical evaluation stage or equivalent stage in the product development cycle for the agrochemical and separations industries. These compounds, which were discovered and/or optimized through ArQule's Mapping Array(TM) and Directed Array(TM) programs during the past 21 months, are intended to treat diseases in nine of the 14 primary therapeutic areas addressed by pharmaceuticals, including cancer, infectious diseases, cardiovascular, and neurological diseases.
Speaking today at the 1998 Hambrecht & Quist HealthCare Conference in San Francisco, Eric B. Gordon, President and Chief Executive Officer of ArQule, noted: "The promise of ArQule's five integrated technologies -- known
collectively as Targeted Discovery(TM) -- has been to change the landscape of pharmaceutical invention by dramatically accelerating the drug discovery process. From the time we started our first pharmaceutical collaboration with Abbott 21 months ago to now, we have in fact delivered on that promise, as evidenced by the number of compounds now being considered for clinical testing. In other words, a drug discovery process that has traditionally taken up to 6 years has been effectively reduced to under 2 years. We believe that this accomplishment has very significant implications for the entire industry."
ArQule has 23 product discovery collaborations, including agreements with seven major companies. In 1997, ArQule signed agreements in the pharmaceutical field with American Home Products and Sankyo Company Ltd., and also initiated its collaboration with Monsanto, to apply its technologies for the first time to the agrochemical field. ArQule also entered into drug discovery collaborations with seven additional biotechnology companies. The dollar value of these 23 collaborations is over $375 million, encompassing fees for the Mapping Array(TM) and Directed Array(TM) programs, and expected milestone payments.
Mr. Gordon stated that ArQule compounds are being exposed to over 100 novel biological targets in research and development programs conducted by ArQule's collaborators, and that the Company has more than 50 lead optimization programs underway simultaneously at this time.
"The pipeline of ArQule-discovered compounds now has the breadth and depth of a typical new product portfolio at a major pharmaceutical company at the equivalent stage of development. As these compounds advance through clinical development towards the marketplace, ArQule will have driven a substantial portion of the new drugs in the health care armamentarium of the next decade," Mr. Gordon added.
"The demand for new products is already extremely large because of the explosion of new biological targets that has been brought about by genomics in recent years. We actually see this demand growing and accelerating over the next five years, because once it is feasible to conduct a rapid, predictable and methodical drug discovery process that takes only one to three years from discovery to IND submission, R&D funds can be leveraged for tremendous productivity. It is that revolution in drug discovery that ArQule has helped to bring about," Mr. Gordon concluded.
Mr. Gordon told investors at the conference that the Company expects to sign additional collaborations in 1998, as well as to further expand its portfolio of technologies and intellectual property. Moving forward, the Company plans to exploit its technologies in drug discovery and other chemical markets.
ArQule, Inc. is a leading chemistry company in accelerated drug discovery using its high throughput lead generation and lead optimization technologies. ArQule provides new pathways to product discovery by integrating five core technologies -- modular building block technology, structure-guided design, high speed parallel chemical synthesis, information technology and an Automated Molecular Assembly Plant (AMAP(TM)) parallel synthesis system to accelerate the identification and optimization of drug and product development candidates in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and agrochemical industries. ArQule's Mapping Array(TM) program is comprised of libraries of novel, diverse, small organic, pure compounds used for screening against biological targets in new product discovery. ArQule's Directed Array(TM) program is an iterative parallel process used to produce analog sets of desired lead compounds and rapidly develop optimized drug candidates. ArQule is based in Medford, Massachusetts.
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 and business environment. These risks and uncertainties are described more fully in the Company's Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1996 and the Registration Statement of Form S-1 dated April 4, 1997, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
/CONTACT: Eric B. Gordon, President and CEO of ArQule, 781-395-4100,
arqule.com or Investor Relations: Marcia Kean or Lucy Morrison of Feinstein Kean Partners Inc., 617-577-8110/ |
