Neurogen Corporation announced that progress in its alliance with Merck & Co, Inc. to discover and develop next-generation drugs for the treatment of pain has achieved a preclinical milestone which triggers an undisclosed payment from Merck.

The alliance, closed January 16, 2004, enables Merck and Neurogen to pool drug candidates targeting the vanilloid receptor (VR1), a key integrator of pain signals in the nervous system, and combine their ongoing VR1 programmes to form a global research and development collaboration.

William H. Koster, president and CEO of Neurogen, said, "Together Merck and Neurogen are tackling a challenging and exciting new target implicated in the transmission of pain signals. Drugs acting on this target may make a real difference in the lives of patients suffering from several different pain states. The milestone achieved is an indication that we are making significant progress toward that goal. Our alliance with Merck also underscores the value of our proprietary discovery platform, which we are applying to a number of new therapeutic areas."