Amphora sells oncology target to Genentech

Amphora Discovery Corporation, a small molecule drug discovery company, announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Genentech, Inc. pursuant to which Genentech will purchase Amphora's entire program for an unnamed oncology target with the potential to treat multiple oncology indications.

Other terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

"We are delighted that Genentech sees the potential value of one of our early stage programs." said C. Nicholas Hodge, Ph.D., Amphora's CSO and founder. "I personally see this as validation of our ability to produce high quality drug candidates." Under the terms of the agreement, Genentech acquired all of the intellectual property for the program, including the preclinical lead and several backup series.

"Amphora's drug discovery engine has produced, and is continuing to produce, extremely high quality new products. We now have a preclinical pipeline with drug-able candidates in oncology, inflammation, pain as well as metabolic and CNS disease." Hodge continued, "We have multiple leads in each of these important therapeutic areas. Amphora has shown that it is capable of moving programs quickly and cost-effectively from screening to proof-of- concept with surprisingly low attrition rates."

Amphora Pharma discovers and develops novel, targeted therapies for human diseases. Our database of over 30 million data points, coupled with an exceptional ability to move programs towards the clinic, make it possible for us to improve the fundamental economics of drug discovery and development.

http://www.amphoracorp.com/pharma.