Wyeth Signs $90 Million Deal With Millennium

American Home Products' Wyeth-Ayerst division has signed an agreement with Millennium Pharmaceuticals which could be worth up to $90 million to the genomics company. Wyeth will work with Millennium in an alliance seeking to discover and develop products for treating diseases of the central nervous system, and the two companies will also share and exchange proprietary drug discover technologies for use beyond CNS research.

For Millennium, the Wyeth deal is the fourth in a series which has brought in potential funding totaling more than $300 million, as well as access to small molecule libraries (from Wyeth and Eli Lilly) which could provide drug leads for the firm. Wyeth is seeking the acceleration in novel drug discovery that is promised by genomics.

Initial targets for the collaboration are genes involved in schizophrenia, depression and anxiety, while in the future the focus could be extended to include a much broader range of diseases, including Alzheimer's disease, stroke, epilepsy and substance abuse.