Genelabs Technologies Inc. on Tuesday announced twocollaborative agreements to develop its anti-cancer drug inTaiwan.
The Redwood City, Calif., company will jointly develop GL331with Yung Shin Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. and will collaborate onclinical research of the compound with the Institute forBiomedical Sciences of the Academica Sinica.
Terms of the agreement to develop, manufacture and marketthe drug will be released next year. "It's a very large deal,"Genelabs' chief scientific officer, Ed Engleman, told BioWorld.
Genelabs will provide technical and regulatory assistance tobring GL331 to market in Taiwan.
The semi-synthetic GL331 is in preclinical studies that haveshown activity against drug-resistant small cell lung cancer,with lower toxicity than the current drug of choice, etoposide.
Engleman estimated that the compound could enter clinicaltrials by the third quarter of next year.
Earlier this month, Genelabs announced that Genelabs Asia(Pte) Ltd. of Singapore, its wholly owned subsidiary, signed acollaboration agreement with Diagnostic Biotechnology (Pte)Ltd. for viral diagnostic technology.
Genelabs and DBL of Singapore will jointly develop andmanufacture hepatitis diagnostics. Privately held DBL willmarket the tests in Asia and Genelabs will retainmanufacturing and marketing rights elsewhere. Genelabs willreceive an unspecified number of warrants to purchase DBLcommon stock.
In February, Genelabs licensed to DBL patented proteins for thedetection of HTLV-1 in exchange for future royalty paymentsand stock warrants. The HTLV-1 virus causes adult T cellleukemia and HTLV-1-associated myelopathy, a degenerativeneurological disorder. The companies have also developed aconfirmatory test that distinguishes HTLV-1 from HTLV-2.Both tests are being marketed in Europe and Asia.
On Tuesday, Genelabs shares (NASDAQ:GNLB) lost 50 cents,closing at $8.63. -- RF
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