Rigel Pharmaceuticals announces milestone payment from Daiichi Sankyo

Dec 23 2009

Rigel Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: RIGL) today announced that it has received a milestone payment from Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd. as part of their collaboration to research and develop cancer treatments aimed at selectively inhibiting ligases, which are intrinsic to cancer cell growth and proliferation. The compound, as yet unnamed, targets cell division.

"We believe that ubiquitin ligases represent a promising area of medical research, particularly in the field of novel therapeutics for the treatment of cancer," said Donald G. Payan, chief scientific officer of Rigel. "We are pleased that Daiichi Sankyo has achieved the milestone and look forward to their efforts in the next upcoming studies and, potentially, future clinical development."

Rigel and Daiichi Sankyo have an ongoing research collaboration aimed at identifying small molecule drug candidates against a ligase target that controls cancer cell proliferation through protein degradation. Rigel's early research efforts uncovered a number of compounds that appeared to inhibit replication of several types of tumor cells. Daiichi Sankyo's research has advanced some of Rigel's early work and has resulted in several milestone payments previously announced through this collaboration.