ChromaXome Corporation and Bristol-Myers Squibb Announce R&D Collaboration in Combinatorial Biology.

SAN DIEGO, Calif. and PRINCETON, NJ--(HealthWire)--Sept. 21, 1995-- ChromaXome Corporation, a privately-held company that uses DNA technology to tap novel sources of chemical diversity for pharmaceuticals, and Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (BMY-NYSE) announced today a collaborative research agreement.

The collaboration will apply ChromaXome's proprietary combinatorial biology approach to Bristol-Myers Squibb's extensive microbe library used in the screening of new drug leads, thus allowing Bristol-Myers Squibb to produce and screen many new and unique compounds for biological activity. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

ChromaXome is the first company to use a new biotechnology tool -- combinatorial biology. The technology involves splicing DNA sequences from difficult-to-access sources, such as marine microorganisms, into common industrial microorganisms such as E. coli, to express large numbers of novel chemicals for screening of potential new drugs.

Screening novel chemicals from microorganisms such as yeasts, bacteria and fungi for biological activity against disease targets is a common drug discovery tool, but can be time-consuming and costly. Developments in biotechnology, such as gene cloning, have made possible significant advances in screen design, resulting in more rapid identification of new compounds for exploratory drug research. A technology such as combinatorial biology may hold potential for even greater speed and efficiency in identifying important new drugs.

Under the terms of the agreement, ChromaXome's combinatorial biology approach will be applied to increase the utility of Bristol-Myers Squibb's extensive microorganism screens. Using the ChromaXome industrial production hosts, Bristol-Myers Squibb may be able to re-express known secondary metabolites of the native microbes at a rate much faster than conventional means. By transferring+genes from marine and other difficult-to-access natural sources into production systems commonly used in drug screening, ChromaXome's technology has the potential to rapidly produce millions of potential new drug leads in a short period of time.

Combinatorial biology is a third-generation genetic engineering technology, utilizing multiple combinations of biological reactions to generate large numbers of chemicals. The first generation of genetic engineering used single genes to produce single proteins like insulin or erythropoetin. Second-generation technologies transferred multiple, specific, well-characterized genes into cells to reproduce specific metabolic pathways. As a third-generation gene technology, combinatorial biology also transfers multiple genes, but they can be randomly mixed and matched from more than one species to produce truly novel secondary metabolites and classes of compounds not seen before.

ChromaXome and Bristol-Myers Squibb researchers will also collaborate to express previously unexpressed or "silent" metabolic pathways as sources of newdrug leads from secondary metabolites using ChromaXome's combinatorial approach.

Commenting on the agreement, Robert Leach, chairman of ChromaXome Corporation, said, "This collaboration further validates the potential of ChromaXome's combinatorial biology approach to drug discovery. Bristol-Myers Squibb will screen ChromaXome libraries using high-throughput techniques which can screen for up to 35 disease targets per day and process more than 10,000 compounds a week. This will be the ultimate test of ChromaXome's technology and we're very excited about the possibility of adding significant value to Bristol-Myers Squibb's existing microbe collections."

Prabhavathi Fernandes, PhD, vice president of Biomolecular Screening for Bristol-Myers Squibb said that ChromaXome's technology reflects the rapid developments in biotechnology that are helping to advance pharmaceutical drug screening.

"Traditionally, natural products have been a tremendous source for new drugs, but they can be very difficult to access," she said. "Even if we achieve a good drug lead with important biological activity, there's no guarantee the molecule can be reproduced in sufficient quantities for further lab investigation. If we can tap unexplored sources of new chemicals, genetically manipulate them and produce them in systems that we're familiar with, then the technology would provide significant advantages in drug discovery and development."

ChromaXome Corporation, founded in 1993, uses its proprietary genetic engineering technology to rapidly develop large numbers of drug leads and chemical derivatives. Its mission is to become a leading developer of drug leads for high-throughput screening. ChromaXome's core technologies focus on methods of expressing DNA from multiple species of marine and other difficult-to-access organisms in industrial microorganisms. In addition, ChromaXome is developing screening methods for rapidly searching these biologically derived DNA libraries for specific bioactivity and chemical production.

Bristol-Myers Squibb is a diversified worldwide heath and personal care company whose principal businesses are pharmaceuticals, consumer products, nutritionals and medical devices. It is a leading maker of innovative therapies for cardiovascular, metabolic and infectious diseases, central nervous system and dermatological disorders, and cancer. The company is also preeminent in consumer medicines, orthopedic devices, ostomy care, wound management, nutritional supplements, infant formulas, and hair and skin care products.

CONTACT: ChromaXome Corporation

Michael C. Dickman, 619/453-5877

or

Bristol-Myers Squibb

Peggy Ballman, 609/252-5323