Ranbaxy's Drug Discovery Team achieves significant Milestone in GSK Research Collaboration

Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd on April 02, 2007, has announced that its New Drug Discovery Research (NDDR) team has achieved a significant milestone in its collaboration with GSK. The Steering Committee, consisting of senior members from GSKs Center of Excellence for External Drug Discovery (CEEDD) and the Company, has approved the candidate selection of a compound for Respiratory Inflammation.

As per the recently signed multi-year agreement, the Company will be able to progress and further profile this drug candidate through pre-clinical studies needed to support an Investigational New Drug (IND) application. The Company will also be responsible for conducting Phase I and Phase II clinical studies through to Proof of Concept. GSK will then have the option to conduct further development through to final commercialization.

Commenting on the progress of the alliance, Dr. Pradip Bhatnagar, Senior Vice President, New Drug Discovery, of the Company, said, "A dynamic collaboration between GSKs CEEDD and Ranbaxy has been the key for this success. This achievement also reflects the discovery capabilities of Ranbaxy’s research team and the growing partnership between the two organizations in the area of NCE research."

This is a major landmark in the GSK-Ranbaxy R&D collaboration, initiated in 2003, and further expanded in February 2007. The new milestone payments and royalties, as enumerated in the revised agreement, will apply to this current development program and to future discovery programs. The Ranbaxy-GSK alliance envisages strong research workflow to emanate from a wide range of therapeutic areas of interest to the Company and GSK, including anti-infectives, metabolic disorders, respiratory and oncology.

The Company could receive over $ 100 Mn in potential milestone payments for a product developed by the Company and subsequently launched by GSK in multiple indications and up to double digit royalties on worldwide net sales.

The Company’s foray into Novel Drug Delivery Systems has led to proprietary "platform, technologies," resulting in a number of products under development. The Company is serving its customers in more than 125 countries and has an expanding international portfolio of affiliates, joint ventures and alliances, ground operations in 49 countries and manufacturing operations in nine countries.

Source : Equity Bulls

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