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Exhibit 99.1
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Contacts: Bayer CuraGen Corporation
USA: Laura Malis Mark R. Vincent
(203) 812-6470 (203) 974-6235
www.curagen.com
Europe: Dr. Michael Diehl ---------------
0049 214-30 58532
www.bayer.com Noonan/Russo Communications, Inc.
------------- Renee Connolly or Tony Russo, Ph.D.
(212) 696-4455
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NOTES TO THE EDITORS:
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WebCast/ Conference Call with executives from Bayer and CuraGen has been
arranged to discuss this pioneering collaboration on January 16,2001, 10:00 a.m.
EST/4:00 p.m. CET. TO PARTICIPATE IN THE CONFERENCE CALL PLEASE DIAL: USA:+1 800
482 2239; Non US: +44 (0) 20 8781 0598 and ASK FOR THE BAYER CONFERENCE CALL.
THE CONFERENCE CALL WILL BE ACCOMPANIED BY PRESENTATIONS THAT WILL BE AVAILABLE
VIA THE INTERNET at www.investor.bayer.com (refer to Events- Live Channel); and
www.curagen.com. IT IS RECOMMENDED TO CHECK THE INTERNET CONNECTION IN ADVANCE.
AN ON-LINE MEDIA KIT is also available at www.curagen.com.
-BAYER AND CURAGEN ENTER INTO TWO LANDMARK AGREEMENTS-
LEVERKUSEN, GERMANY; WEST HAVEN, CT AND NEW HAVEN, CT, USA - JANUARY 16, 2001 -
Bayer and CuraGen Corporation (Nasdaq: CRGN), an integrated genomics-based drug
discovery and development company, announced today two landmark biotechnology
agreements. The first agreement is a comprehensive alliance to discover,
develop, and jointly commercialize small molecule drugs to treat obesity and
adult onset diabetes. The second agreement is a broad collaboration to apply
CuraGen's functional genomic technologies and pharmacogenomic expertise to
evaluate Bayer's developmental and preclinical pipeline of pharmaceutical
compounds across all disease areas.
- OBESITY AND DIABETES ALLIANCE TO DELIVER 12 INNOVATIVE
GENOMICS-DERIVED DEVELOPMENT CANDIDATES -
The obesity and diabetes agreement enables each company to leverage the
recognized strengths of the other in order to systematically develop
breakthrough medications from the human genome. CuraGen is to provide 80 drug
targets over the first five years of the collaboration as well as access to its
comprehensive suite of functional genomic technologies, bioinformatics and
pharmacogenomic expertise to select, prioritize and ensure the resulting drugs
are administered to the appropriate patients. Bayer will utilize its high-
throughput screening, combinatorial chemistry, medicinal chemistry,
pharmacology, and development expertise to develop small molecule compounds
against the targets supplied by CuraGen. The Companies also will share expenses
related to later stage preclinical and clinical compound development. Bayer and
CuraGen have committed to bring 12 candidates in Obesity and Diabetes to
clinical development. Both will jointly fund the relevant research, development
and commercialization activities up to $1.34 billion over a 15-year period. The
research and development costs will be split 56% to 44% between Bayer and
CuraGen.
Ultimately, the companies will jointly commercialize drugs resulting from this
alliance, and then share profits according to their respective contributions.
- MORE -
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Bayer/CuraGen page 2 of 3
"We are partnering with the best biotechnology companies in the world thus
building one of the most productive research platforms in the global
pharmaceutical industry. We expect this collaboration to enhance the
development pipeline for our metabolics franchise and bring novel therapies
using gene-based targets to patients," said Dr. David Ebsworth, Global Head of
Bayer AG's worldwide pharmaceutical business.
"Bayer's expertise in developing small molecule drugs in an industrialized
manner is unprecedented in the pharmaceutical industry and is a perfect fit for
CuraGen," stated Jonathan M. Rothberg, Ph.D., Founder, Chairman, and CEO of
CuraGen Corporation. "CuraGen has an established, high-throughput
infrastructure for developing protein, and antibody therapeutics to treat major
unmet medical needs. Through this unprecedented collaboration with Bayer,
CuraGen is now able to participate in the development and commercialization of
small molecule drugs to treat diabetes and obesity," added Dr. Rothberg.
- PHARMACOGENOMIC AND TOXICOGENOMIC COLLABORATION TO IMPROVE DRUG DEVELOPMENT -
This pharmacogenomic and toxicogenomic collaboration is an expandable, five-year
deal that is valued at $124 million, and includes an $85 million equity
investment in CuraGen by Bayer AG and $39 million in committed funding to
CuraGen.
By applying genomics to evaluate Bayer's developmental and preclinical pipeline
of pharmaceutical compounds early in development, the Companies expect to reduce
drug development costs, reduce the time to market, and create safer and more
efficacious drugs. In addition to these efforts, the Companies intend to
compile a database of gene based markers and information that will enable
scientists to predict potential drug toxicities, understand how a particular
drug works, and identify new disease indications. CuraGen and Bayer both have
exclusive rights to use the established database, and CuraGen has the right to
market this database and pay Bayer royalties on the resulting revenues.
"Through access to CuraGen's genomic technologies, we hope to improve the
probability for success in the clinical stages of development by selecting the
highest potential drug candidates early in the process," said Wolfgang Hartwig,
Head of Global Research for Bayer.
ABOUT THE OBESITY AND DIABETES ALLIANCE
The first agreement represents a comprehensive alliance for discovering,
developing, and commercializing small molecule drugs to treat obesity and late
onset diabetes. Over the initial five-years of this alliance, CuraGen will
deliver to Bayer 80 highly qualified and validated genomic-based drug targets
for screening and early-stage developmental work. CuraGen scientists will apply
its suite of functional genomic technologies and bioinformatics systems to
discover obesity and diabetes related drug targets through the systematic study
of disease models, drug response models, large-scale data mining of the human
genome, as well as human genetics. Further characterization will result from
extensive in vitro and in vivo characterization of the targets in relation to
human disease. CuraGen will also apply its industrialized PathCalling proteomic
technology to identify protein interactions and related pathways, which in turn,
may prove to generate additional suitable drug targets. Upon delivery of these
targets, Bayer will conduct high-throughput screening, combinatorial chemistry,
medicinal chemistry, and other development stage activities, including early
stage preclinical work. Throughout the collaboration, CuraGen scientists will
conduct pharmacogenomic and toxicogenomic evaluations to select and prioritize
the most promising drug candidates, identify possible side effects and elucidate
alternate indications.
-MORE-
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Bayer/CuraGen page 3 of 3
Once the compounds are optimized for clinical development, CuraGen will then
apply its SNPCalling genotyping technology to study genetic variations within
appropriate clinical patient populations to aid in selecting the most
appropriate patients for treatment. Bayer's extensive experience in the
clinical development of small molecule drugs will ultimately enable the
Companies to jointly commercialize innovative obesity and diabetes medications.
This alliance will require United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
clearance under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976.
ABOUT THE PHARMACOGENOMIC AND TOXICOGENOMIC COLLABORATION
Under the second agreement, CuraGen will apply its pharmacogenomic,
toxicogenomic, and pharmacogenetic technologies and expertise to assist Bayer
scientists in evaluating Bayer's early stage drug candidates and preclinical
compounds across all disease areas. This information will be useful in
determining which candidates to prioritize and which preclinical candidates will
have the highest likelihood for success in the clinical phases of drug
development. In addition, the Companies will develop a toxicogenomic database
consisting of expression profiles of genes identified as indicators of toxic
side effects. Once established, CuraGen and Bayer have exclusive rights to the
database and will integrate this new technology in their individual drug
discovery processes and also market this toxicogenomic database to other
pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies for use in toxicogenomic
screening of their preclinical drug pipelines. CuraGen will pay royalties to
Bayer based upon revenues generated from these future partners.
ABOUT BAYER
Bayer is an international, research-based group with major businesses in health
care, agriculture, polymers and specialty chemicals. With some 120,000
employees worldwide, the group recorded a net income of 2 billion euros on sales
of 27.3 billion euros in 1999. A record euro 2.4 billion is budgeted in 2001
for research and development, attesting to the company's quest for innovation.
Additional company information is available at www.bayer.com.
ABOUT CURAGEN CORPORATION
CuraGen Corporation is advancing the discovery and development of pharmaceutical
and life science products through the systematic application of genomics.
CuraGen's fully integrated, Internet-based functional genomic technologies,
services, and bioinformatic systems are designed to rapidly generate
comprehensive information about genes, human genetic variations, gene
expression, protein interactions, protein pathways, and potential drugs that
affect these pathways. The Company is applying this comprehensive functional
genomic platform to develop protein, antibody, and small molecule therapeutics.
CuraGen is headquartered in New Haven, CT and additional Company information is
available at www.curagen.com.
This release may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to certain
risks and uncertainties, including the future growth of CuraGen's collaboration
revenues, the therapeutic and clinical potential of proteins and antibody and
small molecule drug targets, the scale and speed at which drug targets and
candidates can be turned into drugs, and CuraGen's continued ability to rapidly
deliver high quality, novel drug targets. Such statements are based on
management's current expectations and are subject to a number of factors and
uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those
described in the forward-looking statements. The Company cautions investors that
there can be no assurance that actual results or business conditions will not
differ materially from those projected or suggested in such forward-looking
statements as a result of various factors, including, but not limited to, the
following: CuraGen Corporation's stage of development, technological
uncertainties and product development risks, uncertainties surrounding the
availability of additional funding, reliance on research collaborations,
competition, ability to protect its patents and proprietary rights, and
uncertainties relating to commercialization rights.
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