MDS Pharma Services and Iconix Pharmaceuticals form chemogenomics alliance

On December 12, 2001, MDS Pharma Services, a subsidiary of MDS Inc., and Iconix Pharmaceuticals, a California-based biotechnology company, formed a strategic alliance to advance a novel chemogenomics information system for drug discovery and development in the emerging field of chemogenomics. The system, DrugMatrixTM, integrates genomic, biological, chemical, pharmacological and pharmacokinetic information to assist pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to understand the molecular basis for a drug's efficacy and predict potential toxicity and other side effects.

Under the terms of the strategic alliance, MDS Pharma Services made an equity investment in Iconix and committed other funds to the development of DrugMatrix. The parties agreed to combine their respective technologies and expertise for the development of DrugMatrix. In particular, MDS Pharma Services will apply over 30 years of expertise in pharmacology assay development and screening to profile thousands of the DrugMatrix benchmark drug molecules, creating what is believed to be the first standardized source of such comprehensive pharmacology information on marketed, failed and other pharmaceuticals. This information will be leveraged and integrated with Iconix's genomic expression array profiling, literature curation studies and chemical indexing of the same benchmark molecules. The DrugMatrix system will be commercialized by Incyte Genomics, a leading genomic information company. 

Peter Brent, Senior Vice-President and General Counsel of MDS Inc., was assisted by a Fasken Martineau team which included Scott Conover (corporate), Mark Fecenko (biotechnology), Kevin Pillay and Joe Conneely (patents) and Danielle Hough (student-at-law).