Exelgen signs two major drug discovery collaborations
Exelgen, a wholly owned subsidiary of Commonwealth Biotechnologies, and a leading provider of drug discovery chemistry services and small molecule products, has entered into two new drug discovery collaborations.
Exelgen, a wholly owned subsidiary of Commonwealth Biotechnologies, and a leading provider of drug discovery chemistry services and small molecule products, has entered into two new drug discovery collaborations.
The company, formerly known as Tripos Discovery Research, has signed a broad-based collaboration with an unnamed major European pharmaceutical company to discover and develop novel small-molecule therapeutics for use in the fields of CNS, Alzheimer's disease, neuro-inflammation and type-2 diabetes.
"Under the terms of the agreement, based on compounds discovered by Exelgen, our partner will receive an option to license the compounds and collaborate in specific programmes," said Mark Warne, managing director at Exelgen. "With the signing of the agreement, our partner will make an initial up-front cash payment to Exelgen for exclusivity on certain programme assets and have the option to continue development of the assets in collaboration with Exelgen."
If the collaboration proves successful and a drug candidate is identified, Exelgen would receive ongoing support through additional research funding and, more importantly, will be eligible to receive success-based milestones of up to US$25m (Euro 15.9m) and additional royalties on any product sales.
The second collaboration is with a leading US pharmaceutical company. "This collaboration draws on Exelgen's proven track record in computational design and library synthesis and is expected to generate revenues of up to $900,000 (€572,020) over the coming months," said Mark Hober, vice president of business development and marketing for CBI.
