Bayer plans to out-license CuraGen drug candidate

German drug firm Bayer AG has told US drugmaker CuraGen that it plans to license BAY 76-7171 (formerly CT052), a small-molecule drug candidate for type 2 diabetes which was discovered under an ongoing metabolic disorder collaboration between the two firms.

An Investigational New Drug application for BAY 76-7171 was filed with the US Food and Drug Administration in November 2005. In December of that year, CuraGen announced it had exercised its right to revert to a tiered royalty structure under which it would receive royalties on any BAY 76-7171 product sales and would no longer contribute to the agent's ongoing development costs.

Frank Armstrong, CuraGen's chief executive, noted that, "because of the changes we made to this product collaboration in December of last year, today's announcement has no direct impact on CuraGen with respect to near-term value generation from our pipeline or on our resource allocation."