Business
Collaboration with Organon
Collaboration with Organon.
About this update from Sareum Holdings Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n Sareum Holdings PLC\n17 January 2006\n\n\nFor Immediate Release\n\n\n\n Organon and Sareum Announce Research Collaboration\n in Autoimmune Disease\n\nJanuary 17, 2006, Oss, The Netherlands, and Cambridge, UK - Organon, the human\nhealth care business unit of Akzo Nobel and Sareum Holdings plc, the specialist\nstructure-based drug discovery and services business, today announced a\ncollaborative research agreement.\n\nThe aim of this collaboration, in which Sareum will potentially dedicate a\nmulti-disciplinary research team for over one year, is to generate lead chemical\nseries for development by Organon into novel therapies for autoimmune diseases\nsuch as rheumatoid arthritis.\n\nSareum will endeavor to determine the three-dimensional structures of two of the\nOrganon autoimmune disease protein targets and then deploy its innovative\nTemplate Screening method to identify novel compounds suitable for optimisation\ninto lead drug candidates, using its automated medicinal chemistry platform.\n\nIn return, Sareum will receive research fees and success milestone payments.\nFinancial details were not disclosed.\n\nThis is the second announcement relating to the trading update issued by Sareum\non 5th January 2006 where Sareum stated that it had entered into several\ncollaborations in late December, one of which is with Organon.\n\nCommenting on the agreement, Sareum's Chief Executive Officer, Dr Tim Mitchell,\nsaid: \"We are delighted that Organon has chosen Sareum as their partner in drug\nlead identification and optimisation. This is the largest collaboration we have\nsigned to date, and brings together our expertise in protein structure\ndetermination, Template Screening and automated chemistry. We look forward to\nsuccessfully identifying novel drug leads for this important therapeutic area.\"\n\nDr David Nicholson, Executive Vice President Global Research, Organon\nInternational Inc. added: \"This collaboration with Sareum fits very well with\nour ambitions of expanding the breadth and depth of our research programs.\nAccess to new technologies and the focus on new therapeutic areas such as\nimmunology are important building blocks to accomplish these ambitions. We\nbelieve that expanded research activities through partnerships are critical to\nfueling our future pipeline.\"\n\nFor further information:\n\nSareum Holdings pl...