Rational drug design and computer modelling specialist Vertex Pharmaceuticals expects to have two more drugs in trials by the end of 1994, in addition to its first two drug candidates for thalassemia and sickle cell anemia which entered clinical trials in 1993 and early 1994.
The company's approach to drug design seems to be paying off, certainly if the magnitude of some of the corporate partnership deals are taken as a marker of the quality of the technology. Just five years after it was set up, in 1993 Vertex managed to negotiate a $42 million agreement with Burroughs Wellcome and a $20 million deal with Kissei Pharmaceutical to develop and market Vertex' protease inhibitors for HIV infection and AIDS, and signed a $30 million dollar agreement with Roussel Uclaf to develop novel drugs to treat inflammatory diseases. These deals complement an existing $30 million agreement between Vertex and Chugai, entered into in 1990, in the area of organ transplant rejection and autoimmune disease.
Furthermore, the company completed a $62.1 million public offering in February 1994, which brought the company's cash position to approximately $110 million, which should be ample to advance its two new compounds into the clinic.
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