Clarksville, MD San Diego, CA - Sept 8th, 2009. - Neuronascent, Inc., a privately-held biotechnology company developing novel, neurogenic small-molecule drugs for the treatment of depression, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases and ChemDiv, Inc., a global CRO for drug discovery and development, have announced today the signing of a collaborative research agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, ChemDiv will provide pre-clinical development services for characterization and optimization of Neuronascent’s novel pre-clinical lead compounds. Financial terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.
“We are delighted to start a collaboration with ChemDiv, an integrated discovery and development service partner with an acknowledged reputation and successful track record. ChemDiv’s preclinical and clinical platform will enable the advancement of our CNS drug candidate into IND-enabling studies and to determine opportunities for joint commercialization and funding”, said Dr. Judith Kelleher-Andersson, President and CSO, Neuronascent, Inc.
“We are very excited to deploy our R&D team with specific strengths and emphasis in CNS area for Neuronascent,” said Dr. Ilya Okun, VP Biology & CTO at ChemDiv, Inc. “ChemDiv’s strives to expeditiously deliver high-value data resulting in acceleration of development programs for our partners”.
About Neuronascent, Inc.:
Founded in 2004 by Dr. Judith Kelleher-Andersson, Neuronascent, Inc. discovers and develops first-in-class, small-molecule therapeutics, based on the science of neurogenesis, that target depression and neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. The Company is headquartered in Clarksville, MD and has facilities in Rockville and Walkersville, MD. For additional information, please visit www.neuronascent.com.
About ChemDiv, Inc.
ChemDiv Inc. (Chemical Diversity) is a global contract research organization accelerating external discovery and development of novel therapies through comprehensive Discovery outSourceTM services, including discovery biology, medicinal and synthetic chemistry, pre-clinical and clinical development. Visit www.chemdiv.com for more information.
Forward-Looking Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements. Because these statements reflect our current expectations concerning future events, our actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of many factors. These factors include, but are not limited to, our ability to continue to fund and successfully progress service research and development efforts for our partners and to create effective, commercially viable drugs; our ability to effectively and timely conduct clinical trials in light of increasing costs and difficulties in locating appropriate trial sites and in enrolling patients who meet the criteria for certain clinical trials; our ability to achieve and maintain profitability; the extent to which our pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners are willing to fund discovery and development of drug candidates for their product pipelines and to collaborate with and fund third parties on their drug discovery activities; the ability of our collaborators and of ChemDiv, Inc. to meet objectives tied to development milestones; our ability to attract and retain experienced scientists; and management. We are providing this information as of Sept 4th, 2009. We undertake no duty to update any forward-looking statements to reflect the occurrence of events or circumstances after the date of such statements or of anticipated or unanticipated events that alter any assumptions underlying such statements.
