By Lisa Seachrist

Washington Editor

Just two weeks after announcing a ProNet collaboration with Hoffman-La Roche Inc., Myriad Genetics Inc. has announced a $13 million expansion of a 15-month collaboration with G.D. Searle & Co., the pharmaceutical division of St. Louis-based Monsanto Co.

The expansion of the deal adds another undisclosed disease pathway to the collaboration and provides for continued research funding for the previous two disease pathways. The new deal also includes an additional license fee and milestones, which could be worth up to $13 million plus royalties for Salt Lake City-based Myriad.

"The ultimate validation of our technology is the renewals and expansion," said William Hockett, director of corporate communications for Myriad. "Now, all of our long-term collaborators have expanded their deals."

The Searle deal was initiated in November 1998 and included two undisclosed disease targets for a potential $15 million (see BioWorld Today, Nov. 13, 1998, p.1). This expansion extends the length of that deal by one year, includes an additional unrelated disease target and makes the deal worth up to $28 million plus royalties for Myriad.

Myriad's ProNet technology defines disease pathways through the interactions of proteins. Such interactions control processes, such as cell growth and differentiation, intracellular signaling, cell aging and programmed cell death, among others. Using ProNet, researchers can discover and evaluate the potential modifying or disrupting of these protein pathways in order to disrupt the disease process.

"When a company has a single gene they know is involved in a disease process, it is distinctly possible that the product of that gene - the protein - won't be amenable to interactions with small molecule drugs," Hockett said. "ProNet identifies the proteins that interact with the gene product, and the functions of those proteins may be very easy to modify."

To date, the ProNet technology has provided Myriad partners with six potential drug targets, and Myriad has used it to identify seven other drug targets for itself. Most recently, the technology identified a new HIV drug target that could lead to a new class of therapeutics. (See BioWorld Today, Nov. 19, 1999, p.1.)

Myriad has partnerships with Bayer Corp. of Pittsburgh; Schering AG, of Berlin; and Hoffman-La Roche, of Nutley, N.J. The agreements with Roche and Schering focus on different pathways associated with heart disease. The Bayer collaboration covers drug targets related to dementia and depression. Myriad and Bayer also are collaborating on discovering genes for obesity, asthma and osteoporosis.

Hoffman said the expansion of the Searle deal raises the total potential value of all of Myriad's research collaborations to approximately $400 million.

Myriad's stock (NASDAQ:MYGN) closed at $69 a share, up $3.312.