| Paris and Evry-Genopole, FRANCE — July 17, 2002 – The pharmaceutical group Beaufour Ipsen and the biopharmaceutical company UroGene have just signed a partnership agreement for the functional and clinical evaluation of a class of molecules in the field of prostate cancer. UroGene will be contributing its molecular genomic know-how, its biological and clinical expertise, and its biological resources and data base, in order to implement this programme. |    |
"This agreement is very pertinent to the Beaufour Ipsen Group strategy since oncology is one of our major lines of therapeutic research. This agreement with UroGene regarding an important medical application is very satisfactory" stated Christophe Thurieau, Director of Research of the Henri Beaufour Institute. "We are convinced that evaluating our molecules for prostate cancer will open the way to extremely promising new therapeutic possibilities. Cancer of the prostate concerns millions of men the world over. Combining our joint expertise and developing the tools required to provide specialist care will give new hope to patients and clinicians involved in the management of this disease."
"We are particularly pleased with the Beaufour Ipsen decision to join forces with us. They are very prominent in the treatment of prostatic cancer and this agreement concurs with our strategy — an integrated oncological and urological approach. It is also a further demonstration that the means and know-how available to us can advance the development of new therapeutics" declared Philippe Berthon, President and Chief Scientific Officer of UroGene. "Further to our own therapeutic development plans — from gene to treatment — in the field of urological tumours, such cooperative work on new molecules can provide timely solutions in the quest for innovative treatment at the clinical stage."
Present in over 80 countries with a total staff of 3423, the Beaufour Ipsen Group had a turnover of €704 million in 2001, 57% of which was outside France. The Company specialises in oncology, haematology, neurology and endocrinology and has a portfolio of 30 products which are either peptides, derived from biotechnology, or based on natural sources. In 2001, 16.4% of Beaufour Ipsen's turnover is reinvested in Research and Development. R&D is focused on four major areas (biologicals, peptides, therapeutic agents of low molecular weight and drug delivery technology) and is carried out from 4 research centres (Paris, Boston, Barcelona and London) by an international network of around 500 scientific staff. The Group is directing its research efforts towards disabling diseases where current treatments remain unsatisfactory. Beaufour Ipsen currently has a pipeline of 15 projects in development. The Group has also set up research partnerships with prestigious universities in the USA and Europe, mainly in France and in the United Kingdom.
UroGene is a biopharmaceutical company with extensive physio-pathological clinical expertise for the accelerated discovery and development of novel onco-urological drugs (prostate, kidney, bladder).
UroGene's three major assets in order to accelerate the process and reach these objectives are:
- UroBank, a tissue and data bank fuelling research projects and enabling early identification of new pertinent therapeutic targets
- A very efficient — and therefore time saving — therapeutic target validation process
- Complete integration of the research and development platform (genomics, functional biology, proteomics, and medicinal chemistry) so that new treatment projects can progress freely from early molecular gene identity studies to molecules in the clinical trial phase involving patients. Several specialised collaboration agreements have been signed to complement the UroGene platform.
At this point, UroGene is working on four of its own therapeutic development programmes (small molecules and peptides) and one programme in partnership.
Source: Ipsen
