De Novo Pharmaceuticals announces drug design and discovery partnership with Organon

De Novo Pharmaceuticals Ltd recently announced that it has entered a collaboration with Organon under De Novo's Drug Design Partnership Program.

Under the terms of the agreement, full details of which are being kept confidential, Organon has paid a technology access fee, will provide research funding for a period of 12 months, and will pay milestones on successful progression of compounds through the discovery and development process. In return, De Novo will apply its expertise and platform of proprietary computer algorithms to provide novel patentable small molecule leads for Organon to exploit in an innovative and important research area.

Dr David Bailey, Chief Executive Officer of De Novo, said, "We are delighted that Organon has chosen De Novo as its partner for this exciting collaboration. Novel validated approaches in computational drug design are rare, and De Novo's leading position in this field is further endorsed by this collaboration. We look forward to working closely with Organon in their search for innovative medicines."

Driek Vergouwen, Organon's Managing Director Research and Development, said, "Computational drug design is one of the important tools in our lead discovery programs. As such we are very pleased that the collaboration with De Novo will add to our own in-house activities in searching for small molecules as potential leads in our research areas."

Organon becomes De Novo's third leading pharmaceutical partner under its 'Drug Design Partnership Program'. De Novo collaborates with these companies under confidentiality in full collaborative relationships, adding value to a partner's in-house research efforts by rapidly generating novel patentable structures to enrich their discovery portfolios.

De Novo Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
De Novo Pharmaceuticals uses its proprietary computational software for drug design to create novel, patentable lead molecules as candidates for drug development. De Novo's proprietary algorithms can convert information from structural genomics and medicinal chemistry rapidly into new chemical designs, maximising value within a pharmaceutical partner's research portfolio. In addition, De Novo applies its leading in silico drug discovery capabilities to its own in-house research programmes, generating high value lead candidates available for licensing.

Organon
N.V. Organon is a pharmaceutical business unit of Akzo Nobel. Akzo Nobel, based in the Netherlands, serves customers throughout the world with healthcare products, coatings, and chemicals. Consolidated sales for 1999 (excluding Acordis) totalled some EUR 12 billion (USD 13 billion, GBP 8 billion). The company currently employs 68,000 people in 75 countries. Financial results for the year 2000 were announced on February 23, 2001.

Source: De Novo Pharmaceuticals Ltd.