SOURCE: Bio-Quant, Inc.
Dompe and Bio-Quant Form New Drug Discovery Collaboration
MILAN, Italy & SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 10, 2001-- Dompe, S.p.a. and Bio-Quant, Inc. today announced the formation of a new multi-target research collaboration involving four chemokine receptors related to inflammatory and immunological diseases, such as atherosclerosis, glomerulonephritis, asthma, and allergy.
In collaboration with Dompe, Bio-Quant will use its proprietary G Protein Coupled Receptors' (GPCR) functional high throughput screening (HTS) technologies to identify and validate small molecule drug candidates for the agreed upon targets.
Under the terms of the agreement, Dompe will provide Bio-Quant with an initial up-front payment and monthly research funding thereafter.
``By combining Dompe's chemokine programs with Bio-Quant's capabilities and expertise, this new collaboration adds a different, yet highly complementary expertise to our in-house capabilities in the drug discovery and lead validation programs and allows us to manage complex and multiple targets,'' said Dr. Sergio Dompe, chief executive officer of Dompe. ``We are aggressively expanding our research programs in immunological and inflammatory diseases, and this alliance will advance our discovery and productivity activities in this area.''
Commenting on their first european pharmaceutical agreement for Bio-Quant, Bassam B. Damaj, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer, said, ``This collaboration with Dompe is significant for several reasons. It is our first collaboration with a European pharmaceutical company, thus establishing the validation necessary for our technology and marking an entry point for us in the European market. We believe our knowledge and breadth of discovery tools, including functional screening capabilities, imaging analysis devices (Sci Imager, BioReader and ChemoReader) and state of the art high throughput screening, provides us with an advantage in small molecule drug discovery, and Dompe's alliance supports our belief.''
Additionally, Dr. Damaj continued, ``We are confident that this combination will shorten the development time of potential drugs against these challenging and medically important disease targets; we look forward to a productive and continued relationship with Dompe.''
About Dompe Spa
Based in Milan, Italy, Dompe is one of Europe's most integrated and innovative pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Traditionally established in the areas of anti-inflammatory and respiratory pharmaceuticals, Dompe has since expanded its research into biotechnology and, in particular, in antibody-based immunotherapeutic products. For more information, visit Dompe's web site at www.Dompe.it
About Bio-Quant, Inc.
Bio-Quant is engaged in novel and proprietary types of GPCR drug discovery platforms including, chemotaxis and multiplex screening technologies, fluorescent probes, and instrumentations (Sci Imager, BioReader and ChemoReader) for High Throughput Screening and proteomics. Bio-Quant's imaging technology and molecular drug discovery tools provides the pharmaceutical and drug development industry with faster ways and less expensive tools to develop drugs. In addition, the Company has novel types of disease diagnosis called ``Multiplex Technologies'' that permits the simultaneous detection of multiple diseases at the same time and from the same sample in blood, urine and tissues. For more information, visit Bio-Quant's web site at www.bio-quant.com.
When used anywhere in this document, the words ``expects'', ``believes'', ``anticipates'', ``estimates'' and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements herein may include statements addressing future financial and operating results of Bio-Quant and the timing, benefits and other aspects of the proposed merger. Bio-Quant has based these forward-looking statements on its current expectations about future events. Such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties including, but not limited to, the successful implementation of Bio-Quant's strategic plans, the acceptance of new products, the obsolescence of existing products, the resolution of existing and potential future patent issues.
These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from results expressed or implied by forward-looking statements contained in this document. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this document. Bio-Quant disclaims any undertaking to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in its expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.
Contact:
Porter, LeVay & Rose, Inc.
Michael J. Porter, President 212/564-4700
or
Bio-Quant, Inc.
Bassam Damaj, Ph.D., CEO & CSO 858/663-1159