AMGEN FINDS NEW PARTNER.

Byline: Gregory J. Wilcox Staff Writer

THOUSAND OAKS - Amgen Inc., the world's largest biotech company, took on a new partner Thursday in its search for new drugs and broadened a relationship created last month.

Amgen, based in Thousand Oaks, will collaborate with Acadia Pharmaceuticals of San Diego to discover novel small molecule drugs. This could lead to pills to fight a variety of maladies and to a $20 million-plus payday for Acadia.

The deal gives Amgen access to Acadia's proprietary chemical-genomics platform.

``We are pleased to integrate Acadia's innovative approach into our small molecule drug discovery efforts and we look forward to working with them to discover potential new therapeutics for areas of large, unmet medical need,'' Roger Perlmutter, Amgen's executive vice president of research and development, said in a statement.

The partnership allows Amgen to develop and commercialize drugs using Acadia's technology.

Acadia will receive research funding and other remuneration if a successful drug is developed.

The companies would not disclose what diseases they were targeting, said Amgen spokeswoman Rebecca Hamm.

Amgen thinks Acadia is a good strategic partner because the company's technology allows research into massive amounts of drug targets at one time, she said.

Douglas E. Richards, Acadia's vice president of business development, said partnering with Amgen is the best way to get the most out of his company's product.

``Our platform has been so productive we just don't have enough resources to be able to fully address all of the assets. Our plan is to partner with really strong companies like Amgen to leverage this platform,'' he said.

Amgen also expanded on a three-year drug discovery deal established last month with Carlsbad-based Isis Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Thursday's deal gives Amgen access to some of Isis' intellectual property, including patents.

Neither company has disclosed the terms of either transaction or said what diseases they are targeting.

Isis is working on a new genetic technology called antisense, which will stop disease at an earlier stage than traditional drugs.

An antisense inhibitor is a synthetic DNA-like drug molecule. These molecules bind to genes to stop them from producing damaging proteins.

It is not a new concept; the scientific community has been working on it for about 30 years.

However, Isis believes it is poised for a breakthrough that will lead to commercialization.

Richard K. Brown, president of GeneTrove, the Isis division working on the antisense project, said the partnership is a result of all the work being done on human gene research.

``Antisense is now very high developed. People have all this gene-based information they didn't have a couple of years ago,'' he said.

Terms of the expanded agreement call for Isis to help Amgen identify the role of specific genes and determine which of those genes are good targets for drug discovery.

Biotechnology industry analyst Douglas A. Christopher at Crowell Weedon in Los Angeles said neither agreement is surprising.

``Any of these agreements they make I'd say are healthy for both sides. It's part of (Amgen's) research and development plan,'' he said.