BioWorld International Correspondent

PARIS - Serono SA and Inpharmatica Ltd. are expanding the drug discovery collaboration that they originally entered in 2001, selecting and developing secreted proteins using Inpharmatica's PharmaCarta discovery platform.

The companies already have identified more than 200 novel protein sequences, and as part of the expanded agreement, they will contribute to characterizing, validating, optimizing and exploiting them as new drug candidates.

The PharmaCarta platform developed by London-based Inpharmatica, which was founded in 1998, is an ensemble of informatics-based technologies capable of generating drug candidates starting from target genes. The company's main drug discovery program is designed to generate preclinical candidates against 16 novel nuclear receptors, which it describes as proteins that are both druggable and of high therapeutic interest. It has other programs focused on secreted proteins/antibody targets, ion channels, P450 enzymes, metalloproteinases and progestin receptors.

Under the new agreement, Inpharmatica received an immediate payment of $1.5 million for granting Serono, of Geneva, additional rights to protein sequences delivered under the collaboration. In addition, Inpharmatica will receive research funding and potential milestone payments and royalties.

Malcom Weir, CEO of Inpharmatica, said he was "confident that several new and important therapies will result" from the collaboration.