Must have been a good show. I like both Cubist and Microcide, but I'm leaning toward MCDE. Here's a recent release from CBST.....
Bristol-Myers Squibb and Cubist Pharmaceuticals Announce First Milestone
Payment in
Potential $56 Million Collaboration For Anti-Infective Drugs
PRINCETON, N.J., and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 9 /PRNewswire/ --
Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY) and Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc.
(Nasdaq: CBST) today announced a research and licensing agreement with a
potential value of $56 million to develop and commercialize new
antibacterial
and antifungal pharmaceutical agents. In addition, the companies
announced
that Cubist has achieved the first research milestone under the
agreement,
triggering an undisclosed payment from Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Under the terms of the agreement, first described in Cubist's
Securities
and Exchange Commission (SEC) S-1 registration statement for its initial
public offering, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Cubist are collaborating to
discover
novel agents to treat bacterial and fungal infections, among them
tuberculosis. The focus of the collaboration will be to target specific
aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases, a family of 20 enzymes essential to the
process of
protein translation required for survival of all organisms.
Bristol-Myers Squibb has made a $4 million equity investment in
Cubist and
is providing research funding for three years with an option for a
fourth
year. In return, Bristol-Myers Squibb has obtained worldwide licensing
rights
to market any anti-infective drugs developed during the collaboration in
consideration of milestone payments and future royalties. These
commitments,
in addition to a series of milestone payments paid to Cubist by
Bristol-Myers
Squibb, and assuming the development and marketing approval of one
antifungal,
one antibacterial and one anti-tuberculosis compound, puts the value of
the
agreement at $56 million plus royalties on product sales.
The research phase of the collaboration is in progress. Cubist
received
the milestone payment for developing and transferring technology
enabling
Bristol-Myers Squibb to target specific aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase
enzymes.
The technology is being utilized by Bristol-Myers Squibb in the
high-throughput screening of compound libraries to identify potential
drug
leads. Cubist is utilizing its proprietary screening technologies to
characterize the lead compounds.
"Microbial agents with novel mechanisms of action are increasingly
important, given the growing resistance problem, and novel drug
discovery
targets in this area are rare," said Leon E. Rosenberg, M.D., president,
Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute. "Cubist offers
a family of targets with the potential to yield novel, non-toxic,
broad-spectrum antimicrobial agents, and we're pleased to add Cubist's
exciting approach to our own discovery efforts in this area."
"This first milestone payment reflects important collaborative
scientific
accomplishments made by the teams at Cubist and Bristol-Myers Squibb,"
commented Scott M. Rocklage, Ph.D., president and chief executive
officer of
Cubist. "The discovery of novel therapeutic agents to treat diseases
that
are becoming increasingly resistant to current agents requires that
unexploited molecular targets be utilized as the primary source of
attack.
This collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb, across a broad spectrum of
infectious diseases, provides Cubist with an opportunity to
significantly
leverage our drug discovery platform with a partner who is strongly
committed
to the pursuit of new effective infectious disease therapies."
Dr. Rocklage added that microorganisms now resistant to many
available
drug therapies are a significant medical problem. Pathogens such as
Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, Candida albicans, and
Mycobacterium tuberculosis can cause moderate to life-threatening
infections
of the skin, soft tissue, bloodstream, ear, and respiratory tract.
Cubist Pharmaceuticals Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company engaged
in the
research, development and commercialization of novel anti-infective
drugs to
treat infectious diseases caused by bacterial and fungi, primarily those
resistant to existing anti-infective drugs. Cubist's strategy for
combating
anti-infective drug resistance is to identify novel intracellular
targets
essential for cell function in bacteria and fungi, which if inhibited by
a
drug would kill or attenuate the growth of the pathogen. Cubist selects
these
targets based on a thorough understanding of their function, thereby
providing
a foundation for assay development and identification of leads for drug
discovery. Cubist completed an initial public offering of common stock
on
October 25, 1996.
Bristol-Myers Squibb is a diversified worldwide health and personal
care
company whose principal businesses are pharmaceuticals, consumer
products,
nutritionals and medical devices. It is a leading maker of innovative
therapies for cardiovascular, metabolic and infectious diseases, central
nervous system and dermatological disorders, and cancer. The company is
also
a leader in consumer medicines, orthopaedic devices, ostomy care, wound
management, nutritional supplements, infant formulas, and hair and skin
care
products.
Visit Bristol-Myers Squibb on the World Wide Web at
bms.com.
CONTACT: Peggy Ballman of Bristol-Myers Squibb, 609-252-5323, or Scott
M. Rocklage,
Ph.D., President & Chief Executive Officer of Cubist Pharmaceuticals,
617-576-1999, or
Anthony J. Russo, Ph.D., of Noonan/Russo Communications, 212-696-4455,
Ext. 202
Bristol-Myers Squibb press releases available through Company News
On-Call by fax,
800-758-5804, ext. BMYFAX (269329) or at
prnewswire.com |
