CDAS, Prestwick Chemical sign drug discovery research agreement

Caliper Life Sciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: CALP), a leading provider of tools and services for drug discovery and life sciences research, today announced a strategic partnership between the company's contract research organization, Caliper Discovery Alliances & Services (CDAS), and Prestwick Chemical (Strasbourg, France) to provide customized outsourced medicinal chemistry and in vitro and in vivo preclinical biology programs for drug discovery research. The non-exclusive co-marketing agreement offers complete chemistry and biology research programs to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers increase identification of lead compounds.

The outsourcing of medicinal chemistry and biology processes is increasingly strategic as pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies look to reduce costs while accelerating the pace and clinical relevance of drug discovery research. Through Caliper's partnership with Prestwick, drug discovery organizations are now able to contract out comprehensive chemistry, and biology screening and profiling activities, benefiting from Caliper's in vitro and in vivo research capabilities and Prestwick's expertise in medicinal chemistry for hit discovery, hit validation, hit to lead expansion and lead optimization. Clients can quickly screen compounds from the Prestwick Chemical smart libraries through CDAS in a panel of over 1,000 optimized in vitro assays to assess drug property improvement such as selectivity, potency and toxicity. Further hit-to-lead and lead compound optimization can be conducted through customized Caliper - Prestwick collaborations with customers.

"Outsourcing complete chemistry-biology research programs answers an industry need for increased productivity, efficiency and turnaround time in the drug development process," said David Manyak, executive vice president, drug discovery services, Caliper Life Sciences. "By providing integrated chemistry and biology programs, researchers now have a unique opportunity to access combined best in class chemistry and preclinical biology research that is invaluable in identifying safe and effective new drug candidates while minimizing commitment of internal resources."

CDAS and Prestwick Chemical have collaborated closely since 2004 to develop efficient processes for outsourced research. "Following the joint projects that have been extremely successful for our clients, I am very happy that we are able to confirm our involvement with Caliper and extend this offer to better serve drug discovery companies," said Prof. Camille Wermuth, president and CSO, Prestwick Chemical.