Bristol-Myers Squibb and Syngene International, India’s largest contract research organization, announced Tuesday a five-year extension of their drug discovery and development collaboration in India.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

BMS has been working with Syngene and its parent company Biocon since 2007. At the Biocon Bristol-Myers Squibb Research Center (BBRC) in Bangalore, the companies have worked to develop medicinal and process chemistry capabilities, biomarkers, drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics, analytical research, as well as pharmaceutical development, they said.

The collaboration has created six drug candidates for further study and also helped BMS reduce the time and costs associated with advancing new compounds to first-in-human studies. One of the candidates discovered at BBRC currently is in clinical trials, the companies noted.

The early nonclinical development work completed over the last five years at the BBRC has allowed most of BMS's small molecule assets to advance to later stages of development, the New York City-based company said. The BBRC has become BMS' largest research and development center outside the U.S., housing more than 400 scientists, BMS said.

Syngene supports global pharma and biotech R&D with a team of over 2,300 expert scientists and 1 million square feet of laboratories equipped with state-of-the-art infrastructure, the Bangalore-based company said. — Kellen Owings

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