ZURICH and SAN DIEGO, Oct. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Oncalis AG of Schlieren, Switzerland, and ChemDiv, Inc. of San Diego have announced a far reaching Research and Development collaboration, whereby Oncalis will apply its proprietary yeast cell-based technology as well as develop biological assays, and ChemDiv will apply its medicinal chemistry, and in vitro and in vivo biology services in the quest for development candidates inhibiting Receptor Tyrosine Kinase (RTKs) and other cancer-related targets.
Oncalis AG is a recent spin-off from ESBATech AG, a Swiss biotech company that had developed a small molecule platform to complement the antibody program, and decided to give both platforms independent perspectives as well as the opportunity to grow into two dedicated drug development companies.
ChemDiv, Inc. provided the source for leads to the unique yeast-based screening platform that was now completely acquired by Oncalis AG, together with a state of the art High Throughput Screening platform and IP rights on research projects.
The collaboration with ChemDiv envisages joint discovery and development of drug candidates for cancer-related Kinase targets both in Switzerland and at ChemDiv’s Chemical Diversity Research Institute in Moscow, Russia.
Alcide Barberis, CEO of Oncalis commented: “We are extremely happy to have concluded the broad collaboration agreement with ChemDiv at such an early stage of our company’s life. The collaboration gives us access to ChemDiv’s library of nearly 1 million small molecules, an armee of chemists, cancer- related medicinal chemistry know how, as well as in vitro and in vivo models.”
Nikolay Savchuk, President & CEO of ChemDiv added: “This indeed may be an in depth and far reaching collaboration for us. It was the logical extension of years of friendly collaboration with ESBATech. After the Oncalis AG spin- off, it was clear to us, that we wanted to build a closer partnership with this great discovery team. We see a high level complementary scientific knowledge and technology on both sides, that will enable efficient drug candidate discovery and development.”
About Oncalis AG: Oncalis AG (“Oncology alliances”) has been founded in June 2006 as a spin-off from ESBATech AG, a Swiss biotechnology company that has developed technology platforms in both the antibody and small molecule areas of pharmaceutical research. Oncalis has acquired from the mother company all small molecule-related assets, including a yeast-cell based, high- throughput screening platform for receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), and a number of specific and potent kinase inhibitors. The company is currently financed by ESBATech’s Series A investors, including Novartis Venture Fund, BioMedInvest and Venture Incubator (VI) Partners. Oncalis will now focus on the discovery and development of small molecule inhibitors for oncology indications. For more information about Oncalis, please visit www.oncalis.com.
About ChemDiv, Inc.
ChemDiv is a global chemistry-driven contract research organization focused on the delivery of scientific innovation, products and services that meet the drug discovery needs of its partners. ChemDiv provides partners with access to Discovery outsource(TM), a full service drug discovery capability encompassing: medicinal chemistry, pre-clinical development, synthetic chemistry, diverse and focused screening libraries, and logistics services. For more information, please visit us at http://www.chemdiv.com
Oncalis AG; ChemDiv, Inc.
CONTACT: Dr. Alcide Barberis, Chief Executive Officer of Oncalis AG, +41(0)44 733 49 03/00, alcide.barberis@oncalis.com; or Henrik A. E.Konarkowski, MBA, Senior Director Business Development of ChemDiv, Inc.,+1-858-794-4860, hk@chemdiv.com
