PALO ALTO, Calif., Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ -- Anacor Pharmaceuticals today announced that it has achieved its first candidate selection milestone payment of $3 million from its collaboration partner, GlaxoSmithKline. Anacor may receive future milestone payments and royalties should this product candidate progress to clinical development and commercial sales.
"We are pleased with the scientific progress we have made as a result of the alliance we have built between our team and GSK. The strength of this collaboration is reflected in our ability to move our first compound into preclinical development only 15 months since starting our work together," said Jacob J. Plattner, Ph.D., Senior Vice President of Research at Anacor Pharmaceuticals. "We believe that our boron-based platform will continue to allow the collaboration team to successfully identify additional novel product candidates."
In October 2007, Anacor and GlaxoSmithKline announced a worldwide strategic alliance for the discovery, development and commercialization of novel medicines for viral and bacterial diseases. The collaboration provides GlaxoSmithKline access to Anacor's proprietary boron-based chemistry for use against selected antiviral and antibacterial targets.
In December 2008, Anacor closed a $50 million preferred stock financing with participation from GlaxoSmithKline, Schering Corporation and existing investors, including Rho Capital Partners, Venrock Associates, Care Capital and Aberdare Ventures. Proceeds from the financing will be used to further develop Anacor's product pipeline based on its boron chemistry platform. The combined ownership of GlaxoSmithKline and Schering Corporation is less than 20 percent of Anacor's outstanding shares.
About Anacor Pharmaceuticals
Anacor is a biopharmaceutical company developing novel small molecule therapeutics derived from its boron chemistry platform. Anacor has focused initially on developing topical applications of its compounds to treat fungal, bacterial and inflammatory diseases. In addition, the Company is developing systemic antiviral and antibacterial therapeutics under a research and development agreement with GlaxoSmithKline. Anacor's most advanced product candidate is AN2690, a novel topical antifungal in development for the treatment of toenail onychomycosis, which is a fungal infection of the nail and nail bed. AN2690 is licensed to Schering-Plough Corporation under a worldwide development and commercialization agreement for all indications including the treatment of onychomycosis. For more information visit http://www.anacor.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding our ability to identify and efficiently develop product candidates using boron chemistry and our ability to secure milestone or royalty payments from GlaxoSmithKline for these compounds. These statements relate to future events and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual levels of activity, performance or achievement to differ materially from those expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Some factors that may affect these forward- looking statements include, but are not limited to, undesirable effects from our product candidates, clinical failure at later stages of development and unexpected termination of existing partnerships. These statements reflect the views of Anacor as of the date of this press release with respect to future events and, except as required by law, it undertakes no obligation to update or revise publicly any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise after the date of this press release.
CONTACT: Nicole Foderaro of WeissComm Partners, +1-415-215-5643,
nfoderaro@wcpglobal.com, for Anacor Pharmaceuticals
Web site: http://www.anacor.com//
