Abbott Laboratories enters drug discovery agreement

Abbott has announced it has entered into a drug discovery cooperation agreement with a biopharmaceutical company.

Myriad Genetics is involved in the marketing and development of novel products for the healthcare world and the collaboration between the two companies will see them attempt to identify novel therapeutic targets.

“The combination of technologies achieved through this collaboration will further the drug discovery efforts at both companies and is expected to lead to innovative solutions for a wide range of unmet medical needs,” said Dr Dan Norbeck, vice president of pharmaceutical discovery at Abbott.

The five-year agreement will see Myriad handle the identification of human genes and regulatory networks related to diseases.

The company will then identify the genes at the base of the diseases and Abbott will then take this on a further step to identify targets and leads for formulating drugs.

No financial details have yet been disclosed relating to the deal, although Abbott has said that it will own 60 per cent of targets discovered and Myriad will own 40 per cent.

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