A month after partnering its JAK3 inhibitor program in a potential $189 million deal with Wyeth, Pharmacopeia Drug Discovery Inc. signed another collaboration, this one with Organon, of Oss, the Netherlands, to discover and develop small-molecule drugs against a range of indications.

That alliance calls for Pharmacopeia to receive an up-front payment of $15 million, plus $4 million in research funding for each year of the five-year agreement. If discovery efforts yield compounds for clinical development, the Princeton, N.J.-based firm would have the option to share in the clinical development and potential commercialization activities, a provision that underscores Pharmacopeia's evolution "in the last couple of years from a discovery stage company to a discovery/clinical stage company," said Simon Tomlinson, Pharmacopeia's executive vice president of business development.

Since the company has had a "very productive," nearly 10-year collaborative history with Organon, "we were interested in continuing to work together," he said. Only this time, "it was important to evolve our relationship" to include later-stage discovery and the possibility of a profit-sharing arrangement.

"We wanted the option for much more significant ownership," Tomlinson told BioWorld Today.

The company had that same goal in mind when hashing out the details of the Wyeth collaboration reported last month. In that deal, it agreed to grant the Madison, N.J.-based pharma firm rights to its JAK3 inhibitor program for inflammatory disease, with the exception of topical compounds for dermatological and ocular indications. Pharmacopeia anticipates pursuing the development of those compounds on its own. (See BioWorld Today, Jan. 5, 2007.)

If the company chooses not to exercise the co-development option in the Organon collaboration, it would, instead, be eligible for milestone payments and up to double-digit royalties on any product Organon successfully develops from the collaboration.

Specific targets included in the collaboration were not disclosed, but there's a good chance work could focus on areas such as neuroscience and immunology, indications in which Pharmacopeia's discovery efforts have targeted in the past.

"Overall, it's been a great start to the year," said Pharmacopeia President and CEO Les Browne. "We're on track [to become] a company with a portfolio in the clinic," both with collaborators and "on our own."

In addition, early clinical programs through partnerships with Kenilworth, N.J.-based Schering-Plough Corp. and New York-based Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., the company is gearing up to start Phase I testing with its first solo program, a dual-acting angiotensin and endothelin receptor antagonist (DARA) for resistant hypertension and diabetic kidney disease. An investigational new drug application was filed in December and dosing of the first volunteers is "imminent," Browne said.

"Our focus is to keep building up a small but capable clinical development capability," he added, and to complete the "transition into being a therapeutic product company."

Shares of Pharmacopeia (NASDAQ:PCOP) gained 20 cents Tuesday to close at $4.78.