Aurigene Discovery Technologies Ltd (Aurigene), a subsidiary of Dr. Reddy's, and Forest Laboratories Holdings Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Forest Laboratories Inc of USA, have entered into a collaboration for discovering small molecule drug candidates for a novel obesity and metabolic disorders target.
Under the terms of the agreement, Aurigene will undertake and fund discovery and optimisation of lead compounds, with close participation by Forest's scientists. Apart from funding, Forest will also do the subsequent drug development and commercialisation activities. In addition, Forest has full ownership of the compounds developed under the collaboration with unencumbered worldwide rights.
Forest will pay Aurigene undisclosed research milestones according to a pre-defined research plan, as well as sales milestones upon commercialisation of compounds arising from the collaboration. Aurigene could receive over $60 million in development and sales milestone payments if a compound is successfully commercialised.
"Aurigene has been rapidly developing its small molecule discovery capabilities through a number of ongoing programs at various stages of development," said CSN Murthy, CEO of Aurigene. "We will leverage Forest's world class development capabilities and marketing expertise. Our collaboration can flourish by bringing together the complementary strengths from both organizations. This agreement will further strengthen Aurigene's unique risk sharing model of drug discovery partnerships. We are happy to have the opportunity to work together with Forest", he said.
Dr Ivan Gergel, Senior vice president of scientific affairs and president of the Forest Research Institute, commented, "We look forward to working with Aurigene to discover novel drug candidates for the treatment of obesity and metabolic disorders. These conditions have significant unmet medical needs and we believe the target we have identified holds promise. Our collaboration with Aurigene is an example of the continued evolution of Forest's business model such that we are now establishing discovery research partnerships to identify innovative compounds and to secure worldwide rights to the resulting products. Our search for capable partners led us to work with Aurigene and we are looking forward to a productive relationship."
Aurigene Discovery Technologies Limited is a Bangalore-based discovery services company focused on collaborative drug discovery with pharmaceutical and biotech companies on a risk-sharing basis. Aurigene has integrated discovery capabilities, from target to pre-clinical lead optimisation, including in vitro and in vivo biology and medicinal chemistry expertise. Aurigene also has structural biology and fragment based drug design capabilities, with in-house crystallization (XRD) and Bio NMR (600 MHz) facilities. The company is engaged in a number of discovery collaborations and provides discovery chemistry and biology services to companies in the US and Europe.
Forest Laboratories is a US-based pharmaceutical company dedicated to identifying; developing and delivering products that make a positive difference in the human lives.