Roche and Ambit Biosciences announced a multi-year collaboration, alongside a new equity financing round for Ambit, led by Roche. Under the collaboration, Roche will use Ambit's proprietary kinase screening platform to profile and select small-molecule kinase inhibitors. Ambit will receive milestone payments and royalties on drugs developed through the collaboration. Additionally, Roche led a Series C round of financing that raised over $21 million in the initial close.

"We are very pleased to enter into a new collaboration with Ambit," said Peter Hug, Global Head of Pharma Partnering. "Combining Ambit's unique kinase profiling capabilities with our knowledge, efforts, and experience in drug development will enable us to discover new drugs more quickly," he added.

"We are honoured that Roche has decided to support Ambit by taking an equity stake in our company and initiating a multi-year screening collaboration," Scott Salka, CEO of Ambit said adding, "Our collaboration with Roche is a strong endorsement of our proprietary small molecule kinase inhibitor development platform."

Roche is a valued partner to over 50 companies worldwide. During 2003, Roche entered into 20 alliances in discovery, early research and technology, 11 of which extended or expanded existing relationships.