BioScreening - organic compounds for screening

03.11.2004 Norak Biosciences announced the signing of a second license agreement with AstraZeneca to continue use of Transfluor(R) Technology in its G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) drug discovery program.
AstraZeneca will use Transfluor to advance novel lead compounds discovered from a primary high throughput screen utilizing Transfluor under an agreement announced in June 2002. The terms of the 2002 agreement called for Norak to develop a cell line for an AstraZeneca GPCR target of interest that was then screened by AstraZeneca. NB-PR 11/3/04
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30.11.2004 November 2004 Bioscreening News Archive
Dyax Corp. announced that it has granted a non-exclusive license to its proprietary antibody phage display libraries to Tanox, Inc. Tanox, which specializes in the development of biotherapeutics for asthma, allergy, oncology, inflammation and infectious disease, intends to utilize the Dyax libraries to identify fully human monoclonal antibodies that bind with high specificity and affinity to a number of its undisclosed targets. Dyax-PR 11/29/04

AstraZeneca today announced a five-year research and development alliance with Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) in monoclonal antibody research, principally in inflammatory disorders, including respiratory diseases. AstraZeneca will pay £75 million in cash for an issue of 10,217,983 new ordinary shares in CAT, representing a 19.9 per cent shareholding. The equity subscription requires the approval of CAT shareholders.The alliance offers an excellent balance and fit between CAT's established expertise and capabilities in monoclonal antibody generation and optimisation, together with their process technology and early clinical skills, with AstraZeneca's drug development capabilities and global market strength and representation. AZ-PR 11/22/04

QLT and Atrix Laboratories announced that they have completed their merger transaction, creating a leading global biopharmaceutical company focused on ophthalmology, oncology, dermatology and urology. Stockholders of both companies approved the merger and merger-related proposals at special meetings, and all regulatory approvals and closing conditions had been satisfied. Paul Hastings, President and Chief Executive Officer of QLT Inc commented that "Based on the complementary profiles of the two businesses we expected that the combination of both companies’ strengths would create value beyond what either company might have achieved independently and it is gratifying to see our shareholders’ overwhelming support of this decision."  QLT-PR 11/19/04

Tripos has announced a multimillion-dollar, multiyear extension of its global software license agreement with Pfizer. Tripos' discovery software is used by customers to manage, analyze and share biological and chemical information. Since the two companies announced their first wide area network (WAN) partnership in January 2001, Pfizer has employed a broad array of Tripos' drug discovery software tools and applications, including the SYBYL® and UNITY® programs, which help to transform science into commercially viable products.

Cengent Therapeutics, a structure-guided drug discovery company, announced today the signing of a Genes-To-Leads drug discovery contract with Dynamis Therapeutics, a PA-based biotechnology company. Under the agreement, Cengent will apply its proprietary platform lead identification technology, Genes To Leads, to screen for drug candidates against diabetic related kidney and heart disease, blindness and neuropathy. The proprietary drug target of Dynamis is an enzyme that causes the formation of 3-deoxyglucosone. Cen-PR 11/15/04

Dyax Corp. has announced a research collaboration with Biogen Idec.  Under the terms of the agreement Biogen will have access to Dyax's fully human antibody libraries for the purpose of identification and characterization of therapeutic and/or diagnostic antibodies against up to thirty Biogen Idec protein targets per year. Dyax-PR 11/10/04

Norak Biosciences announced the signing of a second license agreement with AstraZeneca to continue use of Transfluor(R) Technology in its G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) drug discovery program. AstraZeneca will use Transfluor to advance novel lead compounds discovered from a primary high throughput screen utilizing Transfluor under an agreement announced in June 2002.  The terms of the 2002 agreement called for Norak to develop a cell line for an AstraZeneca GPCR target of interest that was then screened by AstraZeneca. NB-PR 11/3/04
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