ROCHE BIOSCIENCE AND ARQULE FORM COLLABORATION
MEDFORD, Mass., and PALO ALTO, Calif., September 30, 1996 -- Roche Bioscience and ArQule, Inc. today announced the formation of a three-year collaboration for the discovery and devel pment of novel pharmaceuticals.
According to the agreement, ArQule will apply its molecular building block technology with the goal of accelerating the optimization of therapeutic leads into clinical candidates. Specifically, ArQule will synthesize Directed ArraysTM -- custom libraries of closely analogous compounds -- based on lead compounds provided by Roche Bioscience, developed by ArQule nternally and/or synthesized by ArQule in the collaboration.
Under the terms of the agreement, Roche Bioscience will provide research funding and milestone payments to ArQule. Royalties are also payable to ArQule on the sales of any drugs that result from the collaboration. Specific financial terms were not disclosed.
"Our agreement with Roche Bioscience has the potential to be the largest collaboration formed by ArQule," said Eric B. Gordon, president and chief executive officer of ArQule, Inc.
"One of the key challenges in pharmaceutical research is refining lead compounds into clinical candidates that possess both potent biological activity and optimal pharmaceutical attributes, such as bioavailability," said Roger Whiting, Ph.D., senior vice president of Roche Bioscience and head of the company's Neurobiology Unit. "ArQule's technology has shown tremendous promise in accelerating lead optimization by integrating the capability to rapidly synthesize new molecules with the ability to capture critical structure-activity information."
ArQule, Inc., has created a new technology platform for the discovery and production of chemical compounds with commercial potential, and is a leading provider of novel compounds to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. ArQule's proprietary modular building block technology integrates tructure-guided drug design, high speed parallel chemical synthesis and information technology to accelerate the identification and optimization of drug development candidates. ArQule is based in Medford, Mass.
Located in Palo Alto, California, Roche Bioscience is a research-based, business-oriented enterprise dedicated to the discovery and early clinical development of innovative prescription drugs. Roche Bioscience is a member of the Roche Group, which has headquarters in Basel, Switzerland.
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