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| WiredBird P-R News |
ABBOTT LABORATORIES AND IDUN PHARMACEUTICALS PARTNER TO DEVELOP APOPTOSIS CANCER TREATMENTSAbbott Park, Illinois and La Jolla, California, January 12, 1999 /Wired Bird/ --Abbott Laboratories and Idun Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced a worldwide research and development agreement to focus on the discovery and development of products to treat people with cancer. Abbott and Idun will collaborate on the discovery of drugs that regulate the activity of select proteins involved in the cell pathway leading to programmed cell death, or apoptosis. This strategic initiative combines proprietary technologies from both Abbott and Idun in a major new discovery effort to identify small molecule drugs that kill tumor cells by specifically targeting the apoptotic pathway. Under terms of the agreement, Abbott committed $30 million, which includes an equity investment and research funding. Idun will receive milestone payments and royalties on products resulting from the research program.
Under the terms of the agreement, Idun is responsible for developing primary molecular assays against targets in the core of the apoptosis pathway. These assays will be used by Abbott for high-throughput screening of compound libraries and compound analysis using Abbott's proprietary SAR by NMR technology. Secondary characterization of compound activity will be carried out at Idun using Idun's battery of biological apoptosis assays. "Abbott is committed to cancer research and we believe Idun's expertise in apoptosis will allow us to further strengthen our efforts in this area," says Arthur Higgins, senior vice president, pharmaceutical operations, Abbott Laboratories. "We are very excited to combine Abbott's SAR by NMR drug discovery technology with our outstanding apoptosis biological expertise and targets for inducing cancer cell suicide," says Steven J. Mento, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer, Idun Pharmaceuticals, Inc. SAR by NMR was developed at Abbott and uses nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy to screen a defined library of diverse small molecules for their ability to bind to the individual pockets of a protein drug target. This technique has been shown to significantly speed the difficult and time-consuming process for identifying molecules that bind to important protein drug targets. Abbott holds exclusive worldwide rights for compounds resulting from the collaboration that move forward into human clinical testing. Abbott is responsible for preclinical and clinical development of any drug leads emerging from the joint program and for government approval, manufacturing, marketing and sales. Idun Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a privately held biopharmaceutical company that creates innovative human therapeutics with a primary focus on controlling programmed cell death or apoptosis. In a separate agreement with Novartis, Ltd., the Company is developing drugs that inhibit cell death in the brain associated with CNS disease. Additional discovery programs at Idun are aimed at the development of novel drugs to protect or minimize cell damage resulting from obstructed blood flow (ischemia) or other insults to key organs such as the heart and liver. Abbott Laboratories is a global, diversified health care company devoted to the discovery, development, manufacture and marketing of pharmaceutical, diagnostic, nutritional and hospital products. The company employs 54,000 people and markets its products in more than 130 countries. In 1997, the company's sales and net earnings were $11.9 billion and $2.1 billion, respectively, with basic earnings per share of $1.36, and diluted earnings per share of $1.34. SOURCE ABBOTT LABORATORIES
Last modified 08 September 1999 | |||||||
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