SAN DIEGO and PALO ALTO, Calif., July 17 /PRNewswire/ -- Alanex
Corporation and Roche Bioscience today announced formation of a three-
year collaboration to discover novel small molecule drugs in the area of
pain.
    Alanex will apply its integrated combinatorial chemistry technology
to a Roche Bioscience molecular target with the goal to accelerate the
discovery of orally bioavailable drugs.  Roche Bioscience has a 90-day
option to add a second molecular target for pain and/or lower urinary
tract disorders to the collaboration.
    According to the agreement, Alanex will be responsible for the
screening of its highly diverse combinatorial libraries and optimization
of resulting leads into drug candidates identified in the collaboration.
Roche Bioscience will be responsible for preclinical and clinical
development of drug candidates identified in the collaboration.
    Roche Bioscience will pay an initiation fee, provide research
funding, and make milestone payments in return for worldwide exclusive
marketing and manufacturing rights for compounds arising from the
collaboration.  Alanex will receive royalties on sales of products
resulting from the collaboration.
    "This collaboration represents an ideal application for Alanex's
drug discovery technology to discover novel drug candidates," said
Marvin Brown, M.D., president and chief executive officer of Alanex.
"Roche Bioscience is a recognized leader in the therapeutic areas that
form the basis of the collaboration.  I believe that the complementary
styles and capabilities of Roche Bioscience and Alanex provide the
essential ingredients for a productive drug discovery program."
    "Alanex's expertise in combinatorial chemistry and high-throughput
screening will allow us to leverage novel targets identified at Roche
Bioscience," said Roger Whiting, Ph.D., head of the Roche Bioscience
Neurobiology Business Unit.
    "The agreement with Roche Bioscience represents the second major
collaboration for Alanex within the last nine months," said Ed
Baracchini, Ph.D., the director of Business Development and Strategic
Planning at Alanex.  "During the past two years Alanex has focused its
efforts in developing our integrated combinatorial chemistry technology
and successfully implementing it in our partnered and internal discovery
programs."
    Alanex Corporation, based in San Diego, is a privately held drug
discovery company whose mission is to identify small molecule drugs
using its proprietary drug discovery technologies.  Alanex has developed
and integrated its combinatorial chemistry with computational chemistry,
high throughput screening and medical chemistry.  In December 1994,
Alanex formed a strategic collaboration with Astra Pharma Inc. to
discover and develop drugs for a novel opioid receptor.  In April 1996,
Alanex announced the signing of a collaboration with Novo Nordisk
related to the discovery and development of small molecules for the
treatment of diabetes.
    Located in Palo Alto, Calif., Roche Bioscience is a research-based,
product focused organization dedicated to the discovery and early
clinical development of innovative prescription drugs.  Roche Bioscience is a
member of the Roche Group, which has headquarters in Basel,
Switzerland.