AstraZeneca expands screening and drug discovery relationship

Boston, MA – April 19, 2004 – PerkinElmer, a provider of drug discovery, life science research and analytical solutions, says it has been awarded an expanded contract with AstraZeneca R&D Montreal. Under the terms of the agreement, PerkinElmer’s high throughput screening (HTS) assay technologies will be used in expanded projects that test AstraZeneca’s compounds against a defined selection of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), a major area of disease targets currently under study.

This agreement follows a six-year collaboration between the two companies. The screening contract will be deployed at PerkinElmer’s Assay and Screening Service Center of Excellence in Montreal.

“Because of the success of the screening program and the consistent high level of service we have received from PerkinElmer, we are pleased to expand our relationship into broader high throughput screening activities,” said Philippe Walker, PhD, vice-president, discovery at AstraZeneca R&D Montreal.

AstraZeneca’s directed library screening approach involves the rapid testing of combinatorial libraries against a panel of diverse GPCR targets. Based on the results, new sets of compounds are designed and synthesized by AstraZeneca, which are then tested by PerkinElmer in a panel of GPCRs. This iterative process enables AstraZeneca to rapidly identify potent and selective compounds for critical targets. In addition to the directed library screening program, the new contract includes an expanded offering of functional HTS assays based on PerkinElmer reagent platforms.