Merck-Arena programme progresses

Arena Pharmaceuticals has achieved its first a pre-clinical development milestone under the collaboration with Merck & Co, which triggered a $1m payment to Arena.

The Merck-Arena collaboration focuses primarily on identifying compounds that play a role in preventing and controlling particular cardiovascular diseases.

'Our collaboration with Merck has progressed tremendously in the two short years since it was established. We have achieved all research milestones for this programme and may receive clinical milestones in the future, based on the success of the program,' stated Jack Lief, Arena's president and chief executive officer. 'We have an opportunity to address an important market in the cardiovascular area, and we look forward to working closely with Merck to continue advancement of this program.'

'Merck is very pleased with the progress in our joint program with Arena, which is an example of our continuing commitment to partner with the best of biotech companies,' says Dr Mervyn Turner, senior vice president worldwide licensing and external research.

In October 2002, Arena and Merck entered into a collaboration focused on a group of GPCR targets discovered by Arena, which may represent novel targets for cardiovascular disease. In October, Arena announced that Merck had extended and increased the research funding under this collaboration until October 2007, and expanded the scope of the collaboration to include a wider range of potential therapies for important cardiovascular diseases.

With this milestone payment, Arena has received $8m in pre-clinical milestone payments from Merck thus far this year. Arena could potentially receive up to an additional $34m in clinical and regulatory milestones, in addition to royalties on drug sales, if any, and continued research funding under the collaboration.