Exelixis and Merck Establish Chemistry Collaboration

Companies Combine Chemistry Expertise to Create Novel Libraries

02-May-2002

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. May 1, 2002 Exelixis, Inc. has established a collaboration with Merck & Co., Inc. for the joint design and generation of small molecule compound libraries for high throughput drug screening. These custom libraries will be owned by both companies and will be designed for use in internal lead discovery programs as well as collaborative research programs. The collaboration pairs Exelixis' expertise in combinatorial library design with Merck's synthetic chemistry expertise with the goal of achieving optimal diversity, density, novelty and quality in library production. Exelixis will be responsible for all components of library production, analytics, informatics and formatting. Financial terms of the collaboration are not disclosed.

"Exelixis has achieved broad recognition for its excellence in target identification and validation. This collaboration with Merck, together with our prior chemistry- based collaborations, is a tangible demonstration of the quality of our chemistry programs as well. This collaboration is expected to provide both our companies with enhanced combinatorial chemistry programs and screening libraries," said George A. Scangos, Ph.D., Exelixis president and chief executive officer. "Small molecule drug discovery today requires an integrated technology platform that combines novel biology with high quality, high throughput chemistry. We believe that this collaboration has the potential to advance both companies' strategies to achieve more diversity and depth in compound library design and production, generate more reliable lead compounds, and bring greater efficiency and productivity to the search for important new medicines."

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