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Cellzome AG Announced Partnership Agreement with Novartis

10 Mar 2005 - Cellzome AG announced that it has signed a research collaboration with Novartis to identify new drug targets and leads in a variety of disease areas. Under the terms of the agreement, Novartis will make a substantial equity investment in Cellzome Inc. (Cellzome AG's parent company) and provide research funding for two years with the option of extending the collaboration for a further two years.
 
There will also be lead compound development options for both companies in exchange for licenses, milestone payments and royalties. The work will be conducted between Cellzome's Heidelberg operations and Novartis' Developmental and Molecular Pathways (DMP) group based in Cambridge, MA. The collaboration combines Cellzome's experience in chemical proteomics and pathway mapping with Novartis' insights into particular disease pathways and its expertise in sensitized cellular screens. The aim will be to chart the physical and functional protein maps of key cellular pathways of a variety of diseases, and select the best protein targets within these pathways for the development of new drug candidates.
 
In addition, Cellzome's chemical proteomics expertise will help identify the role of active Novartis compounds in disease and their potential side effects, and thus improve the understanding of how these potential drugs might behave in man.