Abbott Partners Metabolex In Diabetes Research

Abbott Laboratories has signed two new worldwide R&D licensingagreements with Metabolex Inc of Hayward, California, USA, aimed at the discovery and development of drugs to treat diabetes and nutritional products for patients with the disease.

The drug development collaboration focuses on Metabolex' intracellular Glucose Transport Signal Transduction pathway and insulin resistance program. Under the terms of the deal, Metabolex is responsible for identifying molecular targets involved in the mechanism of insulin resistance and developing screening assays based on them. These will be used by Abbott for high-throughput screening. Both firms will evaluate potential compounds.

Abbott holds exclusive worldwide rights for compounds coming from the research, and will be responsible for preclinical and clinical development of any drug leads emerging. Metabolex, in which Abbott has made a $4 million equity investment, will receive milestone and royalty payments on eventual product sales.