Nicholas Piramal enters into R

New Delhi, Nov 19 (UNI) Nicholas Piramal India Ltd (NPIL) today said it has inked research and development (R&D) collaboration agreement with MSD Pharmaceuticals Pvt Ltd, an arm of Merck&Co Inc, for discovering and developing new drugs.

''The Merck-Nicholas Piramal research collaboration is a major step in bringing the cross-border synergies to drug development which should have cost, quality and time advantages and should benefit patients worldwide in reducing the burden of disease,'' NPIL Director (Strategic Alliances and Communications) Dr Swati Piramal said.

NPIL will be responsible for carrying out an integrated drug discovery programme from hits to leads through pre-clinical candidate selection, followed by Investigational New Drug (IND) enabling non-clinical studies and human clinical trials demonstrating proof-of-concept primarily for Oncology, a statement said.

NPIL will be eligible to receive milestone payments associated with progress in the development of drug candidates of up to 175 million dollars per target, plus royalties on sales of any products resulting from the collaboration, it added.

Merck will have an option to advance the most promising drug candidates into late stage clinical trials and to commercialise these drug candidates.

UNI