By Karen Young
Pharmacopeia Inc. is collaborating with Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH in a deal that will provide the Germany-based company tools to test compounds against an undisclosed target.
Pharmacopeia, of Princeton, N.J., will provide assay development expertise, a multimillion-compound sample collection and ultra-high-throughput screening.
¿We and they have very complementary technologies,¿ said Sue Rodney, manager of investor relations for Pharmacopeia. ¿They had a drug target that they were very interested in screening [against a] large number of small-molecule compounds, and we have the assay technology, the high-throughput screening technology and the world¿s largest collection of small-molecule compounds.¿
Pharmacopeia has entered similar collaborations with other companies, including Mitsubishi-Tokyo Pharmaceuticals, Roche Bioscience and Schering AG, she said.
¿I think the more collaborations that we have, the greater likelihood that we will be successful,¿ Rodney said. ¿It¿s largely a numbers game. And we hope to imitate the success we¿ve had in previous collaborations.¿
Boehringer Ingelheim will pay Pharmacopeia a fixed up-front fee for providing the service of creating these assays and testing Pharmacopeia¿s compounds against its target.
¿It is our typical fee, between the half-million and million [dollar] range,¿ Rodney said.
¿To the extent that we find active compounds, Boehringer will pay us success-based payments, as we achieve the initial milestones and then subsequently as they achieve milestones and they pursue development,¿ Rodney said.
In July 2000, Pharmacopeia said it successfully identified active compounds and received a milestone payment in its lead discovery program with Roche Bioscience in the area of neurobiology research.
The research collaboration with Germany-based Schering AG was announced in September 2000 and focuses on the chemical optimization of lead compounds identified by Pharmacopeia.
Pharmacopeia in March announced its collaboration with Mitsubishi, which is very similar to the Ingelheim collaboration. In the Mitsubishi collaboration, Pharmacopeia also is entitled to royalties on marketed products that may result.
Separately, Pharmacopeia said it has received a research milestone in its collaboration program with Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., of New York, with which it has been working on various research projects since 1997. This program is focused on the joint optimization of a series of compounds first identified internally by Pharmacopeia in the field of inflammation.
The cash milestone payment by Bristol-Myers recognized Pharmacopeia¿s successful identification of an optimized lead candidate that met specific research criteria, including potency, efficacy in an animal model and oral bioavailability. Financial terms were not disclosed.
Bristol Myers now has an optimized compound in preclinical studies. Pharmacopeia is entitled to additional milestone payments if the candidate continues to progress through development and royalty payments if the compound, or related compounds, reaches the market.