The companies said that the early extension, which will see Angiotech pay an extra $7 million to CombinatoRx before October 3, 2007, is based upon the successful advancement of a number of product candidates in relevant preclinical models.
“The extension of the research under our agreement with CombinatoRx allows the continuation of a very productive partnership in which we have made notable progress in just less than two years,” commented Dr William Hunter, president and CEO of Angiotech.
“This collaboration capitalizes on CombinatoRx’s capability in the discovery of synergistic combination drug candidates and Angiotech’s significant expertise in the development and commercialization of drug-device combinations and local interventional medicines,” added Alexis Borisy, president and CEO of CombinatoRx.
CombinatoRx and Angiotech entered into the research and license agreement in October 2005. This allowed Angiotech to evaluate and exclusively license compounds from CombinatoRx’s clinical and preclinical pipeline and its proprietary bioinformatics database of synergistic combination pharmaceuticals for development and potential commercialization in certain medical device and local interventional applications.
CombinatoRx also agreed to deploy its proprietary combination high throughput screening technology in a joint multi-year research initiative to identify novel drug combinations.