Nerviano Medical Sciences Expands Partnership with ChemDiv in Lead Discovery

ChemDiv, Inc. and Nerviano Medical Sciences S.r.l. have announced that they have entered into a collaboration to optimize and develop hits for Nerviano's drug targets.

The new agreement follows a successful collaboration since 2004. The hits identified from NMS HT screening campaign will be optimized in terms of their potency, selectivity, in-vitro ADME profile with the subsequent progression into a lead optimization program.

A team of ChemDiv's chemists and biologists will work on this program in close collaboration with NMS. ChemDiv will receive fees for services carried out and milestone payment for the successful performance of the program. Financial terms and Nerviano's drug targets were not disclosed.

"We have decided to extend our collaboration with ChemDiv because of their professionalism and top quality capabilities in chemistry. This new agreement is a significant step forward in the exploitation of our project pipeline. We believe ChemDiv contribution will represent a major upside in our commitment to push into the clinic high quality chemical candidates intended to inhibit key cancer molecular targets", said Giampiero Duglio, NMS' CEO.

Nikolay Savchuk, President and CEO of ChemDiv, Inc. commented: "We are proud to have been working with NervianoMS since 2004 as a preferred chemistry partner. This new collaboration expands our successful partnership with NervianoMS into another area ChemDiv's Discovery outSourceTM platform, including proprietary rational design, extensive medicinal chemistry and pre-clinical biology capabilities. We are confident that ChemDiv's research will contribute an increased value to Nerviano's drug discovery programs."

Further Information: http://www.nervianoms.com/