Covagen and Roche start collaboration
Zurich, Switzerland, June 22, 2009
Covagen (CH) and Roche (CH) have announced today that they have entered a collaboration agreement under which Covagen will use its protein engineering technology to isolate Fynomers – a novel class of protein-based drugs - binding to undisclosed targets provided by Roche. Fynomers delivered by Covagen will be further tested and evaluated by Roche to discover potential new treatments for patients with unmet medical needs. The financial terms of the collaboration agreement were not disclosed.
Dr. Julian Bertschinger, CEO and co-founder of Covagen commented: “We are proud to enter a collaboration with Roche, one of the leading science-based healthcare companies in the field of biopharmaceuticals.” Dr. Dragan Grabulovski, CSO and co-founder of Covagen added: “This collaboration with Roche represents a further step to establish Covagen’s Fynomers as new binding proteins for a variety of applications in drug discovery.”
For further details, please contact:
Covagen AG
Dr. Julian Bertschinger, CEO
Tel: +41 (0) 44 635 60 33
julian.bertschinger@covagen.com
About Covagen: Covagen develops next generation protein drugs for the treatment of inflammatory diseases and cancer by using its proprietary protein engineering technology, which has been developed at ETH Zurich (Switzerland). Covagen's innovative platform comprises the recently developed Covalent DNA Display technology and a novel single domain protein scaffold, which - in analogy to antibodies - can be engineered to yield high affinity binding proteins called Fynomers that can be used for therapeutic applications. In addition, the modular structure of Covagen's Fynomers and its favorable biophysical properties potentially allow for treatment modalities that are difficult or impossible to be exploited with antibodies.