BioFocus announced today that it has extended its collaboration with Chiesi Farmaceutici, a privately owned Italian pharmaceutical company, for a second time. This extension of the collaboration with Chiesi is valued at €2.8 million.

BioFocus and Chiesi began their collaboration in December 2009 and have now extended the agreement for a second time, until the end of 2012. Under the terms of the integrated collaboration agreement, BioFocus will provide expanded medicinal chemistry resource, biology services, and an option to perform ADME services, for an undisclosed Chiesi therapeutic program.

“BioFocus’ offering complements mid-size pharmaceutical companies like Chiesi by providing specialized technologies, such as high-throughput screening capabilities, and disease-specific expertise,” said Dr Chris Newton, SVP Services for Galapagos. “Our ability to add value to these research-minded organizations has been instrumental in building our substantial number of long-running collaborations.”

“We look forward to entering the third year of our ongoing collaboration with BioFocus. As we continue to progress the project, we plan to further utilize BioFocus’ knowhow in medicinal chemistry and ADME optimization,” said Dr Paolo Chiesi, R&D Director and Vice-President of Chiesi Farmaceutici.

About Chiesi Farmaceutici

With over 3,500 employees around the world, the Chiesi Group produces and distributes successful drugs in 65 countries, and is present on five continents with 24 direct affiliates, four research centers, and three production sites. Respiratory pathologies, special care medicine, and cardiovascular disease are its traditional areas of expertise where it offers many therapeutic options recognized for their effectiveness. More info at: www.chiesigroup.com

About BioFocus

BioFocus provides integrated drug discovery that delivers pre-clinical drug candidates in all therapeutic areas with strong capability in neurodegenerative diseases, inflammatory diseases and with a growing track record of delivering candidates against rare and neglected diseases. BioFocus has advanced and comprehensive drug discovery capabilities that are applied to client projects to deliver targets, hits, leads and candidate pre-clinical drugs. The company employs over 220 exceptionally qualified and industry experienced scientists at its three research centers in the UK, Switzerland and the Netherlands. Since its foundation in 1997, BioFocus has striven to produce high quality data for its clients and this quality is assured by ISO9001 qualification validated by regular, independent inspection of all BioFocus research centers.