Suven Life's drug discovery achieves milestone

Hyderabad-based biopharmaceutical company Suven Life Sciences Limited announced that its drug discovery collaboration in central nervous system (CNS) disorder with the US-based Eli Lilly and Company yielded a positive outcome with lead declaration leading to a milestone payment to Suven.

The milestone was achieved with the identification and selection of a first lead compound to be advanced into Lead Optimization Phase of preclinical development, Suven stated in a press release on Monday.

In 2008, Suven entered into drug discovery collaboration with  Eli Lilly to jointly discover and develop candidates for the treatment of CNS disorders. Under the terms of the agreement Eli Lilly will undertake the clinical development of the selected candidate/s and commercialization globally.

Lilly will have the full ownership of the candidates developed under this collaboration while Suven receives ongoing research payments and preclinical milestones.This apart, the press release stated that the contract would provide substantial long-term upside for Suven through potential payments for successful milestones achieved during clinical development and royalties on worldwide sales if new drugs were commercialized.

Suven scrip was trading on Bombay Stock Exchange at Rs 29.05, ip 4.87 per cent over the previous close of Rs 27.70.