Symyx, Aventis Team on Drug Catalyst, Process Screening

Symyx Technologies Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) will collaborate with Aventis Research & Technologies GmbH & Co KG (Frankfurt, Germany) to develop novel instrumentation for high-throughput analysis of pharmaceutical compounds. The companies will initially use the devices to develop catalysts and processes used to synthesize small-molecule drugs. Aventis and Symyx will share the costs of this effort under terms of a one-year agreement.

"This collaboration also marks an extension of our long standing relationship," says Symyx chairman/CEO Steven D. Goldby. He says both companies will apply the technologies developed under the agreement to life sciences-related applications.

Symyx develops and applies combinatorial technologies to the discovery of materials for the life sciences, chemical, and electronics industries. The company was founded by Alejandro C. Zaffaroni, (founder of Alza Corp., DNAX Research Institute, Affymax NV, and Affymetrix) and Peter G. Schultz (head of the Novartis Institute for Functional Genomics and professor of chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute).

Aventis was formed this past December when France's Rhone-Poulenc SA merged with Germany's Hoechst AG. With revenues of $21 billion, it ranks as one of the world's largest pharmaceuticals companies.

Edited by Alan S. Brown