Singapore: Quebec's Cyclenium Pharma has signed a drug discovery collaboration agreement with Astellas Pharma in Tokyo.

The collaboration, planned for an initial two-year term, will exploit Cyclenium's proprietary QUEST Library of next generation synthetic small-molecule macrocycles and associated optimization expertize to identify clinical candidates effectively against multiple pharmacological targets, selected by Astellas in their therapeutic focus areas.

While Cyclenium will be responsible for all medicinal chemistry efforts from hit validation to pre-clinical candidate selection, Astellas will utilize its internal resources for the characterization of biological and pharmacological properties of the new macrocyclic compounds as well as having responsibility for pre-clinical and clinical development of the resulting drug candidates.

According to the transaction, Cyclenium will receive an upfront payment and research funding from Astellas.