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Gene Genies
CuraGen inks major pharmacogenomic pact with Hoffman-La Roche
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Business New Haven
4/5/1999
By: BNH
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Thanks to the advent of genetic technology, pharmaceutical research today is no longer the tedious, time-consuming hit-and-miss process it once was. Where scientists once fired blindly, with little knowledge of the actual biochemical basis of drug operation, specific genes can now be targeted with considerable precision.
The New Haven-based biotech firm CuraGen will now bring its genetic expertise and unique genetic techniques to the field in a pharmacogenomic partnership with F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. headquartered in Basel, Switzerland.
This life sciences target-and-discovery agreement partners CuraGen with Roche affiliates Hoffmann-La Roche Inc. and Roche Vitamins Inc. It is designed to evaluate existing product candidates, discover new drug targets and facilitate the development of drugs and diagnostic tests for human and animal health.
Financial terms of the two-year renewable agreement were not disclosed, but it does include up-front funding and potentially provides CuraGen with significant milestone and royalty payments for products resulting from the collaboration.
“CuraGen's expertise in genomics and bioinformatics superbly complement Roche's internal expertise in molecular biology, high-throughput screening, microbiology and immunology,” said Glenn Monastersky of the Roche Vitamins Division Center of Excellence for Animal Nutrition and Health.
“By employing genomics-based targets in our discovery program, we intend to increase the speed, cost-effectiveness and efficiency of filling our [product] pipeline so that we can provide our customers with innovative products for the next millennium,” added Monastersky.
Roche will integrate proprietary information from SeqCalling and recently patented GeneCalling technologies and related databases into its existing discovery efforts.
By allowing Roche to discover new drug targets more quickly and to better evaluate candidates for development, the partnership has the potential to greatly increase the efficiency of the discovery process - resulting in beneficial new pharmaceuticals, as well as financial gains for both Roche and CuraGen.
“Our collaboration with Roche includes the potential for significant milestone and royalty payments,” said CuraGen's Peter A. Fuller. “The backbone of this agreement emanates from the application of CuraGen's integrated platform of pharmacogenomic technologies to late-stage product development candidates. Successful assessment of these candidates will increase the likelihood of CuraGen receiving near-term revenues from these evaluation efforts.”
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