Alza Corporation and TransForm Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced a major collaboration to develop more effective pharmaceutical products. Under the terms of the multiyear agreement, Alza and TransForm have agreed to work together exclusively to develop and implement a proprietary high throughput platform to enable the rapid and efficient identification of optimal formulations for future products that employ Alza's proprietary D-TRANS transdermal delivery technology.
The collaboration brings together TransForm's state-of-the-art high-throughput capabilities, sophisticated informatics, and pharmaceuticals expertise in form and formulation with Alza's industry-leading capabilities in drug delivery technology.
Under the terms of the agreement, Alza has paid TransForm an up-front licensing fee and will wholly fund the development of specialized, high throughput platforms that will be used to discover proprietary formulations for products. Alza will pay TransForm milestones and royalties on the resulting formulations and products, and will develop and manufacture products arising from the collaboration.
"Alza has long been visionary in the area of drug delivery. We're delighted they have chosen to work with TransForm in the formulation area," said Norman Selby, president and CEO of TransForm. "Our ability to perform high throughput discovery and analysis of pharmaceutical forms and formulations has the potential to create significant new opportunities for partners like Alza interested in capturing the maximum value from their drug portfolios."
"We are excited to be collaborating with TransForm to bring together our leading capabilities. Our collaboration underscores Alza's commitment to maintaining leadership in drug delivery and to expanding our partnerships throughout the global healthcare industry. Our collaborations with pharmaceutical, biotechnology and academic partners are helping to drive future innovations that will result in commercially differentiated products for patients worldwide." said Sam Saks, M.D., Alza's company group chairman.