By Matthew Willett

Staff Writer

ZymoGenetics Inc., trying to fill its pipeline as it prepares to become an independent company, entered a collaboration with FibroGen Inc. to develop a wound repair product.

The companies will combine ZymoGenetics' recombinant human thrombin with FibroGen's recombinant human Type III collagen in an effort to develop and ultimately commercialize a novel wound repair product.

"It's really a research collaboration," Jan Ohrstrom, ZymoGenetics' vice president of development, said. "We here at ZymoGenetics and at FibroGen have seen some mutual interests where we could boost our resources by collaborating. Technology will be shared, and in that sense you could say resources are being pooled."

Terms of the agreement weren't specified, but Ohrstrom said the pairing is research oriented, not financially driven.

"This is a pure research collaboration where we mutually agree to a work plan on areas of interest, so it will not have an effect positively or negatively on our balance sheet; however, if the work plan generates good progress we'll reassess it and be open for continuing this kind of mutually satisfying collaboration," he said.

The companies will assess the program through a combined scientific board and make decisions on various financial aspects, such as milestone or other payments, as warranted.

Plans call for a product to reach clinical trials, though Ohrstrom wouldn't elaborate. He did say the partnership is part of an ongoing effort to develop ZymoGenetics' pipeline.

The 19-year-old company said earlier this year it plans to spin off from its parent company, Novo Nordisk A/S, of Denmark, which acquired ZGI in 1988 following a collaboration in the area of insulin. ZGI has one of the largest collections of intellectual property in the area of protein therapeutics, but has kept a reasonably low profile as a unit of Novo. The plan, depending on market conditions, is for Novo to issue a private placement of ZymoGenetics shares by the end of the year, giving ZGI controlling interest. (See BioWorld Today, May 5, 2000, p. 1.)

"Hitherto, Zymo has been a discovery arm of Novo," Ohrstrom said. "Zymo has been feeding Novo's pipeline, but in the future Zymo will be able to take products through to the market on its own."

Making a move toward self-reliance should bring ZGI additional freedom, he added.

"It's good business sense since Novo is focused on diabetes and Zymo is an opportunistic research entity. We're not always able to deliver diabetes compounds to Novo's pipeline, but we will be able to hit all the areas," he said.