CHUGAI INVESTING $30 MIL. IN VERTEX IMMUNOSUPPRESSIVE R&D

CHUGAI INVESTING $30 MIL. IN VERTEX IMMUNOSUPPRESSIVE R&D as well as an undisclosed "small equity interest" in the Cambridge, Mass.-based R&D start-up, the two companies announced at an Oct. 3 press conference in Cambridge. In a joint statement, Chugai and Vertex said they have signed an agreement "to design and develop novel, orally active immunosuppressive drugs for the treatment organ transplant rejection and autoimmune disorders such as insulin dependent diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis." Under the terms of the agreement, Chugai, a Japanese pharmaceutical company, "will provide funding to support a five-year research effort at Vertex, called the Immunophilins Program." In the U.S. and Canada, Vertex and Chugai will "jointly develop and commercialize" any drug candidates that emerge from the Vertex R&D program under a 50-50 profit sharing arrangement. The two companies did not rule out the possibility of out-licensing compounds down the road to a company with a U.S. sales force since neither Vertex, an 18-month R&D start-up, nor Chugai has an established sales and marketing presence in the U.S. However, Chugai is working on a marketing beachhead in the U.S. through its Marogen (erythropoetin) joint venture with Upjohn. Both Chugai and Vertex emphasized that any decision on marketing would be made jointly by the companies given the profit-sharing agreement. Chugai will assume responsibility for the clinical development and commercialization of drug candidates from the Vertex R&D program in the Far East, where the company will retain exclusive rights, and pay royalties on sales in that region to Vertex. In Europe, Vertex will retain exclusive rights to products for that market. Vertex is describing the immunophilin program as the first of a series of R&D programs planned by the company in which new compounds for selected disorders will be developed through the techniques of "structure based rational drug design." Vertex uses advanced technology from the fields of X-ray crystallography, protein nuclear magenetic resonance, and computer modeling as well as more traditional forms of chemical analysis and drug development to discover "the three dimensional atomic structure of human receptor proteins critical to the immune response," the company explained. These models will then be used to create drugs that produce fewer side effects and are more effective than currently available compounds. At present, Vertex is looking at the active receptor sites for Sandoz' cyclosporin and Fujisawa's FK-506.