Nuevolution A/S announced that it has entered into a drug discovery collaboration with Novartis. Through the collaboration, Nuevolution will apply its proprietary Chemetics drug discovery technology to identify novel small molecule leads against drug targets of interest to Novartis. The Chemetics platform uses innovative DNA labelling to allow fragment-based drug screening at an unprecedented scale.

Nuevolution will screen its multi-million member diverse fragment based screening libraries for hit identification. Through the design, synthesis and screening of target focused Chemetics follow-up libraries, the parties will also work together to perform hit-to-lead optimization.

Under the terms of the agreement, Novartis will provide Nuevolution with an upfront payment, research funding, and milestone payments as candidate molecules progress through preclinical and clinical development and onto the market. In addition, Nuevolution is eligible to receive royalties on the commercial sales of approved products. Further financial details were not disclosed.

"We are delighted that Novartis has elected to enter this collaboration with Nuevolution" said Alex Gouliaev, CEO of Nuevolution A/S, and continued: "We look forward to an exciting and fruitful outcome of the collaboration."

Nuevolution is a leading lead discovery company founded in 2001 and based in Copenhagen, Denmark. The company has developed Chemetics, a unique, patent protected hybrid of proven wet chemistry and molecular biology which represents the ultimate fragment based lead discovery technology.