ALZA Corp. and TransForm Pharmaceuticals Inc. entered a three-year collaboration to develop drugs that would use ALZA's D-Trans transdermal delivery technology, now in products such as Duragesic, a 72-hour system for the management of chronic pain.

ALZA, of Mountain View, Calif., will use Waltham, Mass.-based TransForm's technology to optimize the formulation of products ALZA has in its development pipeline, said Barbara Carter, vice president of human resources and public relations at TransForm.

ALZA Vice President of Business Development Erik Wiberg said, "We view this as a way to broaden our D-Trans transdermal technology and to identify new formulations that will hopefully lead to new products."

Neither ALZA nor TransForm would disclose specific financial details of the collaboration, other than that ALZA paid Transform an up-front licensing fee and will provide the cost of development for customized high-throughput platforms. ALZA also agreed to pay TransForm milestones and royalties.

"It's a multiyear agreement that certainly sets the foundation for us," Carter said, explaining that TransForm also will use the technology for its own internal product development efforts.

In terms of goals for the collaboration, Carter said, "The first goal is to have technology that works."

TransForm, founded in 1999, spent its first two years developing its high-throughput platform, which uses liquid-transfer technology, high-throughput analytical tools and informatics tools to identify chemical and physical forms and formulations of drug molecules. The platform is based on technology originally licensed from Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Cambridge, Mass.

Since the licensing, TransForm has "been making the technology more robust and more meaningful to potential partners," Carter said.

TransForm's technology allows companies to find the best formulation of a product early on in the process, and it also can improve bioavailability and solubility, she said. The platform can be used for both new products and existing products.

Last year, ALZA was acquired by Johnson & Johnson, of New Brunswick, N.J., bringing changes.

"Our business model has expanded following the merger," Wiberg said. "A big, new area of ours is working with J&J molecules and products."

That may involve improving versions of J&J products in J&J's pipeline or working to develop new products working with groups across J&J.

"If it's in the pipeline, we could come out with a new product, or we could rescue a compound that looked very promising but had problems that we might be able to help out with," Wiberg said.

The company also is working with what once was called ALZA Pharmaceuticals. They will work to combine an ALZA delivery system with a molecule no longer having patent protection and create a value-added product, Wiberg said. Examples of those would be Concerta, a once-daily extended-release tablet for attention deficit disorder, and Ditropan XL, for overactive bladder.

The company has 30 products marketed in 80 countries. The company will continue its partnering activities, as well as look for more collaborations or in-licensing opportunities, something Wiberg called an "expanded area of interest."

"Some people have wondered whether we're continuing [partnering], and the answer is very much yes,'" Wiberg said. "We've signed four new partnerships since the merger, although we haven't disclosed them."