Xenova And W-L Join On Drug Discovery

UK biopharmaceutical company Xenova says it has agreed to a new drug discovery collaboration with Warner-Lambert's Parke-Davis unit. Under the terms of the deal, W-L will make equity investments of up to L2 million ($3.2 million) in Xenova, so becoming a founding partner in support of the development of Xenova's new natural product discovery technology, QTC.

The agreement provides for milestone and royalty payments, and gives Xenova certain marketing rights, including exclusive marketing in Europe for cancer products resulting from the collaboration. The two firms have collaborated for the past four years, and P-D has recently begun evaluation of a drug lead discovered using Xenova's NatChem technology.