Anadys Pharmaceuticals Inc and Aphoenix Inc, an emerging chemical genomics company in Japan, have entered into a three-year drug discovery collaboration.

Under the terms of the agreement, Anadys will utilize its drug discovery capabilities to discover and advance lead compounds against Aphoenix targets in multiple therapeutic indications. Aphoenix has already established early stage drug discovery programs in respiratory and anti-inflammatory diseases.

Financial terms of the agreement include upfront and future research funding plus additional milestone payments to Anadys. Anadys will also share in potential downstream value through milestone and royalty payments, an official statement said.

"We are pleased to collaborate with Aphoenix in the pursuit of novel therapeutics," said Kleanthis G Xanthopoulos, Anadys' president and C EO. "By combining our expertise in lead generation with promising targets from Aphoenix, we look forward to ushering quality compounds into preclinical development. Additionally, we are pleased to participate in the potential downstream value of these programmes," he added.

"Our reverse targeting capability coupled with Anadys' technologies and capabilities create a great synergy. This combination provides Aphoenix with an opportunity to realize a comprehensive chemical genomics approach," said Shingo Kano, Aphoenix's president and CEO. He added, "We are pleased to link value chains of such critical processes and leverage our target identification engine with Anadys."

Anadys Pharmaceuticals Inc is a biopharmaceutical company involved in discovering, developing and commercializing novel small molecule, anti-infective medicines for the treatment of hepatitis C virus (HCV), hepatitis B virus (HBV) and bacterial infections.

Aphoenix Inc is a Tokyo-based chemical genomics company with a proprietary technology called reverse targeting, spanning from small molecules to protein targets.