Advinus and Merck for drug discovery and development collaboration

Mumbai, Nov 16 (UNI) Advinus Therapeutics (P) Ltd, a 18-month-old company backed by Tatas, and Merck&Co have formed a drug discovery and clinical development collaboration in the area of metabolic disorders.

Making a formal announcement of this development today, Tata Sons Ltd Executive Director R Gopalakrishnan said ''Advinus and Merck will work together to develop clinically validated drug candidates for metabolic disorders with Merck retaining the right to advance the most promising of these candidates into late-stage clinical trials''.

''Under the terms of the agreement, Advinus will receive an upfront payment and could potentially receive milestone payments up to USD 74.5 million for each of the two targets, out of ten, included in the collaboration'', he said.

''Advinus will be investing a sum of 25-20 million USD into the venture initially and will be tripling its headcount from present strength of 300, within a couple of years at its two sets of operations are located in Pune and Bangalore'', he added.

According to Advinus CEO and MD, Dr Rashmi Barbhaiya, ''This collaboration provides an avenue for Advinus to gain access to cutting-edge technologies from Merck, while leveraging its India-based discovery and development capabilities''.

''The metabolic disorders including diseases like diabetes, hypertension, cholesterol and lipitimia have not yet been controlled, and thus, the scope for more drug discoveries into the field remains to be explored'', said Advinus Chief Scientific Officer Kasim A Mookhtiyar.

Talking about the company's future plans, senior vice-president (operations) Rajiv Malik said ''We're looking for sponsored research partnership for some of the neglected diseases like malaria, dengue, leshmaniasis (Kala Azar)''.

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