MILAN, Italy, Sept. 9, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- BioXell SpA, the Italian biopharmaceutical company focused on immunology, today announced an exclusive joint collaboration agreement with TaiGen Biotechnology Co. Ltd. ("TaiGen"), a privately held biopharmaceutical organisation based in Taipei, Taiwan.
Under the terms of the agreement, TaiGen and BioXell will jointly research and develop new drugs targeting selected members of the Gprotein coupled receptor (GPCR) family for the treatment of chronic inflammatory diseases. BioXell will be responsible for receptor target identification and testing of drug candidates in various bioassays. TaiGen will be responsible for screening receptor targets against its chemical compound library using CART (constitutively activated receptor technology) receptor assays, identification of chemical leads and lead optimization. Preclinical and clinical development of such leads will be carried out jointly by TaiGen and BioXell. Financial terms were not disclosed.
GPCRs constitute the largest family of cellsurface receptors which distribute throughout the tissues in human body and have been shown to play key roles in the development of many diseases. To date, many drugs targeted at selected GPCRs have been successfully developed to treat serious illness. The decoding of the human genome has revealed nearly 700800 GPCRs that could have therapeutic potential. More than half of them are orphan GPCRs for which ligands have not yet been identified. This offers the opportunity to discover and develop novel therapeutics for diseases with unmet needs.
Francesco Sinigaglia, Chief Executive Officer of BioXell said: "This collaboration is a clear upside for our drug discovery efforts in the fields of immunology and chronic inflammation for three reasons: firstly, through the existing TaiGen/Arena agreement, we will have access to the Arena database of approximately 700 human GPCRs, among which, BioXell and TaiGen, jointly, plan to select a number of them as drug targets in chronic inflammatory diseases. Secondly, through the use of the CART technology platform, we will be able to perform ligand-independent, direct identification of compounds that modulate the function of GPCRs. Finally, TaiGen's experiences and technology for high throughput drug screening and its focus in medicinal chemistry further strengthen BioXell's small molecule programmes so far exclusively dedicated to Vitamin D chemistry through its medicinal chemistry group in Nutley, NJ."
BioXell is a privately held pharmaceutical company with a competitive edge in immunology developing two strong technology platforms based on the TREM receptor system and Vitamin D3 analogues. From these, BioXell has identified molecules to be developed in secondary hyperparathyroidism, benign prostatic hyperplasia. In addition, the company has research programmes in inflammatory diseases including asthma, psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis. In March 2002, BioXell raised $22m in a firstround financing from a consortium of three toptier venture capital firms: MPM Capital, Index Ventures and Life Sciences Partners. BioXell has a network of academic collaborations, including Washington University, St. Louis and the Universities of Arkansas, Milan, Florence, Modena and Zurich. More information on BioXell can be found on: www.bioxell.com
TaiGen Biotechnology Co., Ltd, located in Taipei, Taiwan, is a privatelyheld startup organisation with a focus on the discovery of novel treatments in the areas of oncology and immunology, with its initial thrust at the family of G protein-coupled receptors. Created with the assistance of the Government of Taiwan, TaiGen is focused on establishing itself as an initial biotechnology based commercial enterprise in Taiwan. The Company's founder and President & CEO, Dr. MingChu Hsu, was formerly Research Director for Oncology and Virology at Roche and most recently founding Director for Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Research at the National Health Research Institutes (Taiwan's functional equivalent of the U.S. National Institutes of Health). Key NHRI scientists have joined the Company. TaiGen is well funded and highly competitive in technology. In July 2001 and 2002, the Company closed two tranches of Series A financing, totalling $ 37 million from investors in Taiwan, U.S. and Japan. In addition, the Company has a key platform technology invested from Arena Pharmaceutical in the U.S. More information on TaiGen can be found on http://www.taigenbiotech.com
Notes to editors:
In July 2001, TaiGen entered into a licensing agreement with Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Nasdaq:ARNA) (www.arenapharm.com) giving TaiGen the right to select validated screening assays that include CARTactivated GPCRs for use in the development of therapeutics that target these receptors.
Arena's CART technology (constitutively activated receptor technology) is used to discover drug candidates by activating receptors to mimic the biological response that occurs when the native ligand binds to it. By going through this process, the CART technology avoids the major bottleneck in drug discovery efforts with regards to orphan receptors i.e. a receptor for which the native ligand has not been identified. Although hundreds of new orphan GPCRs are being made publicly available through genomics research, traditional drug discovery techniques to find the native ligand and hence potential drug candidates cannot be used on this class of receptor due to the length of time it takes (35 years) and the cost involved, which can escalate to millions of dollars per GPC receptor.
CART technology can be applied broadly to GPCRs, as they are all highly similar in structure. By altering the genetic structure of the GPCR, the CART technology can stabilise the receptor in the active state in the absence of a native ligand. Subsequent screening using CART technology, allows for the simultaneous identification of compounds that act as receptor inhibitors to decrease the detected biological responses, or act as receptor activators to increase the detected responses. This therefore allows for the discovery of drugs that either enhance or inhibit a specific biological activity.
Chronic inflammatory diseases.
Inflammatory diseases are caused by a normal immune response gone awry, or by the immune system turning on itself to attack the very tissues it was designed by evolution to protect. Seemingly unrelated disorders such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, multiple sclerosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, all have inflammatory elements.
If you have any questions please contact Noonan Russo Presence on 44 20 7726 4452.