ChemDiv and Euroscreen Form Strategic Alliance for GPCR Drug Development

ChemDiv, Inc. and Euroscreen s.a. today announced a partnership to discover and develop drug candidates targeting difficult-to-discover drug candidates for high value GPCR family chemokine targets.

San Diego, CA / Brussels, Belgium (PRWEB) July 1, 2005 -- ChemDiv, Inc. and Euroscreen s.a. today announced a partnership to discover and develop drug candidates targeting difficult-to-discover drug candidates for high value GPCR family chemokine targets. ChemDivs proprietary chemistry permits small molecule drug development for such G Protein-Coupled Receptors (GPCRs) while Euroscreens expertise in GPCR assay development and testing will provide rapid screening of the ChemDivs Library and subsequent target validation and support to ChemDiv lead optimization. The partnership will provide preclinical and clinical candidates for partnering with shared income for the companies.

"We are very excited about the possibility of rapidly targeting the chemokine GPCRs as the focus of our collaboration," said Alexander Kiselyov, VP Global Chemistry ChemDiv. "This target-focused alliance with Euroscreen adds to our existing programs with partners to develop high value drug candidates for GPCR targets for future partnering."

This should provide our companies with a rapid opportunity to each contribute our key proprietary skills to rapidly advance important new drug candidates," said Dr. François Roman, the Head of Drug Development R&D at Euroscreen.

For further information, please contact:

Euroscreen s.a.    

Tel: +32 71 348 500        

Pierre Nokin, Ph.D.

President and CEO

ChemDiv, Inc.

Tel: +1 858-794-4860        

Nikolay Savchuk, Ph.D.

President

About ChemDiv Inc.

ChemDiv Incorporated (ChemDiv) is a global chemistry-driven contract research organization focused on the delivery of new scientific innovation and products and services that meet the drug discovery needs of its partners.

Drawing on a long heritage in small-molecule chemistry research as well as world class pre-clinical biology resources, ChemDiv provides partners with access to Discovery outSource a full service drug discovery capability encompassing synthetic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, pre-clinical development, diverse & focused screening libraries and global logistics.

Taking a dedicated and personal approach to collaborative research and development has proven to be a successful business model for ChemDiv over a period of 15 years. This is attested to by the formation of strategic partnerships with many of the major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies such as Merck KgaA, Sanofi-Aventis, Astra Zeneca, Dupont, Novo Nordisk and other biopharmaceutical and crop protection, Early adoption of collaborative R&D model with top academic centers such as Johns Hopkins , Harvard, Stanford, Burnham Scripps as well as biotech partners enables ChemDiv with novel biological targets, pioneering assay systems and animal models.

Opening of the Chemical Diversity Research Institute in Moscow a facility that houses state-of-art technology expanded ChemDivs capability in discovery chemistry, biological screening, animal testing, bionanalytical, chemo- and bio-informatics.

ChemDiv, Inc. is a privately held company based in San Diego, CA with 400 employees in its facilities worldwide. More information can be found at www.chemdiv.com.

About Euroscreen s.a.

Euroscreen is a world leader in G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). The company integrates its research expertise in this area with its patented high-throughput AequoScreen cellular assay platform to patent new GPCR targets and drug candidates.

The company is building a patent portfolio of GPCR targets and novel drug leads for licensing to biopharmaceutical companies, and to date has agreements with Cephalon, CyBio, EvotecOAI, GE Healthcare, ICOS, Merck & Co, Pfizer Inc, Solvay, Syngenta and UCB. Euroscreen has also established collaborations with numerous academic centers for access to licenses to help in making available its broad menu of GPCR-based products (recombinant cell lines and membrane preparations) and services (custom screening and cloning).

Euroscreen has grown significant and strong patent positions to protect many key drug targets for licensing. Such patents include CCR5, GPR7/8 involved in metabolic defects and adult-onset obesity, purinergic receptors (P2Y4, P2Y11 and P2Y13), ORL-1 and the non-GPCR SHIP2 for type II diabetes. Euroscreen is able to offer rights to companies which are developing therapeutic drugs that act through the above-mentioned key targets mode of action.

Euroscreen is a privately held company based in Brussels, Belgium with 80 employees. More information can be found at www.euroscreen.com.

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