Press Releases
March 2, 2006
Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited
Osaka, Japan, March 2, 2006 --- Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited ("Takeda") announced today that Takeda has selected LG474, a target for drug discovery in cardiovascular field, which was discovered by Lexicon Genetics Incorporated ("Lexicon") in its Genome5000™ program. Under the terms of the agreement, Takeda has paid research milestone of US$5 million to Lexicon for the selection of LG474.
In July 2004, Takeda and Lexicon entered into an alliance to develop new drugs directed against promising hypertension targets discovered in Lexicon's Genome5000 program. In this collaboration, Takeda will have an exclusive access to all drug targets for three-year term of the agreement, and will evaluate and verify the targets to create the new drugs. Takeda is responsible for the screening, medical chemistry, pre-clinical and clinical development and commercialization of drugs directed against Lexicon's targets, and bears all related costs.
Takeda paid an upfront payment of US$12 million to Lexicon upon conclusion of the agreement in July 2004, and it will pay to Lexicon, in addition to a US$5 million research milestone this time, the development and launch milestones and also royalty once the product is launched.
"We are pleased to start research study of LG474 as the first target that we have selected under this collaboration with Lexicon Genetics," said Shigenori Ohkawa, Ph.D., general manager of Takeda's Pharmaceutical Research Division "We highly expect this research to lead to the discovery of new drugs for cardiovascular diseases."
"We are pleased that, after extensive research, Takeda supports our positive assess-ment of the value of the LG474 target and is committed to advancing this drug dis-covery program into development," said Arthur T. Sands, M.D., Ph.D., president and chief executive officer of Lexicon. "Takeda's selection of LG474 is an encouraging progression of our alliance toward therapeutic development and further validation of the importance of the targets we are discovering."
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