Neurocrine Biosciences Awarded $1.5M SBIR Grant From NIH to Support GPCR Library Design, Synthesis and Evaluation
SAN DIEGO, Aug. 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: NBIX) announced today that the Company has received a Phase-II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This new grant totals more than $1.5M over a two year period to support the further development of a novel screening library of compounds targeted towards G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs).
Results obtained by Neurocrine scientists during Phase-I NIH grant studies demonstrated that a 2000-member library of molecules designed specifically to interact with a sub-family of GPCRs produced a much higher success rate in high-throughput screening than did similarly sized random chemical libraries. The new Phase II NIH award will allow the design, synthesis and evaluation of a larger GPCR-targeted library of small molecules and will facilitate the identification of therapeutic drug candidates. This library design technology extends the company's "Multi-Channel" drug discovery technology to the development of high-throughput screening libraries.
"Traditional approaches to drug discovery start with the screening of large diverse chemical libraries against the biological target of choice which is time consuming, inefficient, and often expensive. By generating smarter, smaller, focused libraries tailored to specific groups of targets, in this case a sub-class of GPCRs, we are greatly improving our capacity to rapidly identify drug-like molecules for these attractive therapeutic targets," said John Saunders, Ph.D., Vice President Research (Chemistry) for Neurocrine Biosciences. "This is particularly relevant at Neurocrine since many of the current targets within our research programs are GPCRs."
Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. is a product-based biopharmaceutical company focused on neurological and endocrine diseases and disorders. Our product candidates address some of the largest pharmaceutical markets in the world including insomnia, anxiety, depression, malignant brain tumors and peripheral cancers, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, irritable bowel syndrome, eating disorders, pain, stroke, and certain female health disorders. Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. news releases are available through the Company's website via the Internet at http://www.neurocrine.com .
In addition to historical facts, this press release contains forward- looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward looking statements are risks and uncertainties associated with Neurocrine's research and development programs and business and finances including, but not limited to, risk that Neurocrine's research will not be successful in identifying drug candidates; risk that pre-clinical studies will indicate that drug candidates arising out of Neurocrine's research will not be suitable for human clinical testing; risk that Neurocrine's drug candidates will not successfully proceed through clinical trials or that later stage clinical trials will not show that they are effective in treating humans; determinations by regulatory and governmental authorities; dependence on corporate collaborators who could terminate their relationships with the Company at any time; uncertainties relating to patent protection and intellectual property rights of third parties; impact of competitive products and technological changes; availability of capital and cost of capital; and other material risks. A more complete description of these risks can be found in the Company's Form 10K for the year ended December 31, 2001 and the current form 10Q each of which should be read before making any investment in Neurocrine common stock. Neurocrine undertakes no obligation to update the statements contained in this press release after the date hereof.
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SOURCE Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc.
Web site: http: //www.neurocrine.com
CONTACT: Claudia Jones or Paul Hawran of Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc., +1-858-658-7600