Celltech and NeoGenesis Enter Research Collaboration

13-Jul-2001

Celltech Group plc (LSE; CCH; NYSE; CLL) today announced a research collaboration with NeoGenesis, Inc., a privately held biotechnology company based in Cambridge, MA, within which NeoGenesis will use its proprietary chemical genomics technology to identify and optimise new chemical compounds as novel drug discovery leads against multiple disease targets within Celltech's core therapeutic areas. NeoGenesis' core technology, the Automated Ligand Identification System ("ALIS") is central to the collaboration. ALIS is a scalable system for rapidly screening large numbers of disease associated targets. Coupled with NeoGenesis' neoMorph compound library, consisting of more than 10 million diverse 'drug-like' compounds, ALIS identifies small molecule ligands of high affinity and high selectivity against the full range of protein classes to accelerate drug discovery. Dr Peter Fellner, Chief Executive Officer of Celltech, commented: "Rapid access to highly novel leads is critical in successfully pursuing innovative small molecule drug discovery. The collaboration with NeoGenesis is an important addition to our existing small molecule discovery capabilities, which we expect to substantially increase the output of drug candidates. This agreement exemplifies Celltech's strategy of accessing focused technologies which add significant value to our existing discovery platform". Under the terms of the agreement, Celltech will provide disease targets against which NeoGenesis will apply its screening technology to identify new drug discovery leads. Celltech will provide research funding for NeoGenesis, in addition to payments upon achieving certain milestones. Celltech will be responsible for the commercialisation of all products arising from the collaboration and will make royalty payments to NeoGenesis on sales of such products. Celltech will also make a $10 million equity investment in NeoGenesis as part of the agreement.