News
FORMA Therapeutics and Experimental Therapeutics Centre of Singapore Collaborate to Develop Therapeutics Against a Broad Range of Novel Targets
March 16, 2009
CAMBRIDGE, MA —FORMA Therapeutics and the Experimental Therapeutics Centre of Singapore (ETC) announced today a collaboration agreement to leverage FORMA’s transformative chemistry platform to discover novel compounds for further development by ETC. ETC is funded by the Agency for Science, Technology & Research (A*STAR) of Singapore, which is committed to fostering world-class scientific research and talent for a vibrant, knowledge-based Singapore. Financial terms were not disclosed.
“Working collaboratively with ETC will allow us to demonstrate the power of FORMA’s transformative chemistry platform across a broad range of targets pursued by ETC,” said Steven Tregay, Chief Executive Officer of FORMA. “We share a commitment to advancing early-stage science and translating those discoveries into practical clinical applications. This collaboration is therefore mutually beneficial, potentially bolstering Singapore’s biomedical pipeline of the future, while also further validating the productivity and efficiency of FORMA’s proprietary drug discovery technologies in identifying new, promising compounds.”
Professor Sir David Lane, Chief Executive Officer of ETC, added, “Many exciting scientific discoveries involve targets that have been historically intractable to traditional drug discovery approaches, so we are excited to be collaborating with FORMA to access their expertise in Diversity Orientated Synthesis to address these challenging targets. We hope these efforts may potentially result in new drug leads that ETC can then incubate and further develop into promising human therapeutics.”
“We are pleased that FORMA is able to leverage on Singapore’s well established biomedical R&D capabilities and infrastructure to further grow shareholder value through Singapore," commented Swee-Yeok Chu, Chief Executive Officer, Bio*One Capital of EDB Investments. “FORMA's activities and presence here will add to the vibrancy of the local biomedical sciences research community,” she said.
About FORMA
FORMA Therapeutics is integrating transformative biology and chemistry to unlock the best targets and pathways that genomics medicine has revealed. FORMA builds on the vision of its academic founders: Stuart Schreiber, Todd Golub, Michael Foley, each of the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and leverages its innovative drug discovery platform to address challenging targets and develop a robust internal pipeline of targeted breakthrough oncology drugs. FORMA is a global company headquartered in Cambridge, MA with additional research operations in Connecticut, Singapore and Beijing. www.formatherapeutics.com
About ETC
The Experimental Therapeutics Centre’s (ETC) mission is to mine the gap between basic
and applied biomedical research. Academic institutions are playing an increasingly
important role in translating scientific discoveries into practical applications – from
engaging in early stage drug discovery and development, to developing innovative
research tools for clinical analysis, as well as setting up public-private partnerships to
facilitate the advancement of drug candidates. ETC was conceived to contribute to this
exciting process of translational work. ETC will augment Singapore’s capabilities and
resources in this spectrum of the drug discovery process.
About Bio*One Capital
EDB Investments’ subsidiary Bio*One Capital is a leading, biomedical sciences
dedicated investment management company in Asia with a global presence. Investments
are focused on promising and innovative international biomedical companies where
Bio*One Capital can play a value-adding role in bridging and supporting growth
strategies in Asia through Singapore. Bio*One Capital oversees a portfolio of over 50
companies in US, Europe, Singapore and Asia. For more information, please visit
www.bio1capital.com.
Contact:
FORMA Therapeutics
Steven Tregay, CEO
(617) 679-1970
Media Contact:
MacDougall Biomedical Communications
Douglas MacDougall or Kari Watson
(781) 235-3060