Successful partnership between Mercury Therapeutics and CreaGen Biosciences highlighted

Oct 28 2009

The recent licensing deal between Mercury Therapeutics and Debiopharm showcases the highly successful partnership between Mercury Therapeutics and CreaGen Biosciences, said CreaGen in a statement released today.

For the past three years, Mercury has partnered with CreaGen for medicinal chemistry-based outsourcing of their lead generation program seeking to develop small molecule activators of AMP activated protein kinase. Novel AMPK activators hold promise for the treatment of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

The collaboration between Mercury and CreaGen has produced valuable intellectual property including MT-63-78. Now called Debio 0930, this compound serves as an orally active the lead compound for which Mercury has recently signed an exclusive licensing agreement with Debiopharm, SA of Lausanne, Switzerland.

According to a statement from Dr. Neal Birnberg, President and CEO of Mercury Therapeutics, “Our partnership with CreaGen began with gratis work and rapidly evolved into a FTE-based relationship where CreaGen functioned as our medicinal chemistry department, providing both chemical design and synthesis services. From the start, the CreaGen team was an active collaborator, where they drove the design and synthesis of promising compounds in a timely fashion.”

CreaGen CEO Dr. Raj (SB) Rajur noted “CreaGen developed the highly efficacious lead (Debio 0930) and backup compounds over a period of seven months, which is aggressive by industry standards. This FTE-based collaboration exemplifies the efficiency of our scientists and the value our experienced team provides to our partners.”

"We look forward to expanding our collaboration with CreaGen into other therapeutic areas,” Birnberg added.

“We are pleased by the tremendous success of this program and look forward to continued successes with each of our collaborators. Our partners require their outsourced chemistry programs to have well-managed teams of chemists experienced in drug discovery and development. They expect the convenience of a local partner and require the capacity and flexibility that CreaGen provides to each of our customers. When considering the investment in time and capital that FTE-based programs entail, the industry will seek the high value collaboration with CreaGen,” said Leland Johnson, Business Development Manager for CreaGen.