NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Compugen and DiscoveRx today announced a collaboration to commercialize specially designed peptides matched with specific G protein-coupled receptor targets.
Under the agreement the novel peptides will be designed by Compugen and be matched with GPCR targets using DiscoveRx's GPCR-related technologies.
DiscoveRx will use its PathHunter Platform and suite of proprietary cell-based GPCR assays and related technologies to match individual peptides in the Compugen GPCR targeted peptide library with GPCR drug targets of interest to DiscoveRx's customers. After matching, the peptides will be available for licensing from Compugen under milestone and royalty-bearing agreements.
Compugen's peptide library contains more than 900 peptides predicted to have a high likelihood of modulating GPCR targets.
Compugen and DiscoveRx will share revenues based on different pre-arranged sharing percentages "for each category of revenue anticipated by the collaboration," they said.
Today's deal follows the successful completion of a pilot program in which DiscoveRx's technologies were used to analyze the Compugen designed peptides with a small subset of GPCR targets.
Based on the firms' "synergistic competitive advantages and the demonstrated success of the recently completed pilot program, we believe that via this partnership, pharmaceutical and biotech companies will be able to gain access to novel peptides for both research and product development purposes," Pyare Khanna, CEO of DisoveRx, said.