Following success in the initial phase of a lead discovery collaboration, Pharmacopeia Drug Discovery Inc. and Neurocrine Biosciences Inc. expanded and extended their agreement.

"First, it's further validation of the quality of Pharmacopeia's compound collection for pulling out interesting, potent and attractive starting points for medicinal chemistry against a wide range of targets," Simon Tomlinson, Pharmacopeia's senior vice president of business development, told BioWorld Today. "I think the second level of validation is the recognition by [a quality organization like Neurocrine] of the quality of Pharmacopeia's medicinal chemistry capabilities for taking hits and leads forward toward the clinic."

Princeton, N.J.-based Pharmacopeia recently delivered a series of lead small molecules to Neurocrine as part of their early work together. Tomlinson declined to specify the exact nature of the compounds, though he noted Neurocrine's focus on products to treat central nervous system disorders or metabolic diseases.

For its efforts, Pharmacopeia earned an undisclosed milestone payment as San Diego-based Neurocrine decided to advance the compounds from lead discovery toward clinical development. After that decision, the companies agreed to collaborate further to optimize the potency, efficacy and bioavailability of the series to qualify an orally available lead candidate for preclinical toxicity testing.

"Both parties are doing chemistry, and both are doing biology," Tomlinson said. "The in vivo biology will be done, or organized by, Neurocrine."

Should the compounds advance through preclinical and clinical development, Pharmacopeia would receive further milestone payments and would be entitled to royalties on commercial sales. Tomlinson said terms of the deal precluded him from providing more specific financial terms.

The companies' relationship dates back a year, when they first agreed to identify lead compounds from a portion of Pharmacopeia's collection of more than 7 million drug-like compounds against select Neurocrine targets.

Outside the framework of that collaborative work, Pharmacopeia has internal drug development programs focused on inflammation and immunology. Its programs are at relatively early stages of development, as the company jumped back into such efforts earlier this year following its spinoff from Accelrys Inc. (See BioWorld Today, Dec. 22, 2003.)

Neurocrine's portfolio is headed by the lead drug candidate indiplon. The company has developed two formulations of the insomnia drug, immediate- and modified-release versions, and last week filed a new drug application for immediate-release capsules.

Earlier in its clinical pipeline are a number of other products, including NBI-5788 for multiple sclerosis, NBI-6024 for Type I diabetes, NBI-428 for endometriosis and benign prostatic hyperplasia, a CRF1 receptor antagonist for depression and urocortin 2 for congestive heart failure. In fact, the company said it just began a Phase I trial of the last product to evaluate its safety, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics in healthy volunteers; early next year, it expects to begin a Phase II study of urocortin 2 in patients with mild to moderate congestive heart failure.

On Monday, Pharmacopeia's stock (NASDAQ:PCOP) gained 31 cents to close at $5.96. Neurocrine's shares (NASDAQ:NBIX) dipped 38 cents to close at $43.90.