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Biotech / Medical : Biotech Lock-Up Expiration Hell Portfolio -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tuck who wrote (89)	6/11/2001 11:05:53 AM
From: nigel bates	Respond to of 1005

Don't think anyone posted this... time for an MCLS thread ? I think INCY is a backer of Elitra. <edit> - they are Message 14334773 CHICAGO and SAN DIEGO, June 7 /PRNewswire/ -- MediChem Life Sciences (Nasdaq: MCLS - news), a Chicago-based drug discovery technology and services company, and Elitra Pharmaceuticals Inc., a privately- held antimicrobial functional genomics company, announced today that they have entered into a three-year strategic medicinal chemistry agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, MediChem and Elitra will conduct a joint research program to discover and develop drug candidates for the treatment and prevention of microbial infections. The goal of the collaboration is to develop investigational new drug (IND) candidates and to bring the drug candidates into clinical trials. The companies will select a series of Elitra's proprietary, validated antimicrobial targets for drug discovery. Using proprietary tools in high- throughput screening and rational drug design, the team will identify new antimicrobial drug candidates by screening libraries of small molecules against Elitra's unique drug targets, conducting medicinal chemistry on those drug candidates and developing the ones with the most desirable clinical properties. The two companies will commit resources and share rights to the program. Elitra will reimburse MediChem for research conducted by MediChem scientists in the collaboration. Elitra may purchase MediChem's rights to drug candidates resulting from the collaboration in exchange for milestone payments and royalties on sales of products based on those drug candidates. ``This collaboration is an excellent example of how technologies can be combined to accelerate the drug discovery and development process,'' said Michael T. Flavin, Ph.D., president and CEO of MediChem. ``We believe that the field of antimicrobial treatment needs new solutions and that Elitra's technology offers unique tools for identifying optimal antimicrobial drug targets and associated novel drug candidates. Combining our resources will enable us to develop these important drug candidates more rapidly.'' ``MediChem's expertise in the area of medicinal chemistry is extremely complementary to Elitra's target discovery and high throughput capabilities,'' said Harry F. Hixson, chairman and CEO of Elitra. ``This collaboration is another example of how Elitra actively seeks alliances with leaders in areas that will accelerate the development of novel antimicrobial drugs.'' The antimicrobial drug market is one of the largest therapeutic markets in the world with more than $30 billion in sales in 2000. For over 50 years, antimicrobial drugs such as penicillin, cephalosporin and tetracycline have made it possible to treat many infectious diseases that were previously fatal. Common infections include pneumonia, meningitis, and strep throat. However, the increased use of antimicrobial drugs has created a resistance problem that is rapidly moving to the forefront of public health concerns. The development of new drugs against novel targets is critical to address the widespread emergence of drug resistant microorganisms. MediChem Life Sciences (http://www.medichem.com) is a Chicago-based drug discovery technology and services company that offers a broad range of integrated chemistry R&D capabilities to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. A leader in medicinal chemistry research since its inception in 1987, MediChem has extended its technologies and services through proteomics, biocatalysis, combinatorial chemistry and chemical process development. The company's technologies and services are designed to enable its clients to reduce overall development time and costs, and to advance a greater number of discovery and development opportunities through to the marketplace. Elitra Pharmaceuticals Inc. (http://www.elitra.com) is a leader in antimicrobial functional genomics and is focused on the identification, development and commercialization of novel antimicrobial compounds that target essential gene products of pathogenic organisms. Elitra's ultra-rapid gene- to-lead approach allows it to rapidly proceed from analyzing the genes of bacteria and fungi to testing for effective drug candidates. Elitra has filed patents on over 3,100 essential gene drug targets in pathogenic bacteria and fungi to date....