Science & Enterprise logo
Science for business people. Enterprise for scientists.

Scripps Institute, Sigma-Aldrich to Partner on Reagents

Beakers (Research.gov)
(Research.gov)

Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California is collaborating with Sigma-Aldrich Corp. in St. Louis to speed the availability of new chemical reagents for drug discovery to the scientific community. The deal calls for payments to Scripps from Sigma-Aldrich, a chemical and laboratory services company, although the size of the payments is not disclosed.

Under the agreement, Sigma-Aldrich will receive an exclusive license to commercialize new reagents developed in six labs at Scripps: Phil Baran, Carlos Barbas, Benjamin CravattPhillip DawsonBarry Sharpless, and Jin-Quan Yu. The research conducted in the labs covers various aspects of chemistry, biochemistry, and molecular biology.

Sigma-Aldrich will provide payments to Scripps for the research conducted in the labs that results in the discovery of new reagent compounds. The company will also assign a product number to each of the new reagents, and make them available to the research community on the same day as their publication in scientific journals.

Scripps and Sigma-Aldrich are already partnering on commercializing a collection of 10 zinc-based salts developed in the lab of Phil Baran. Scripps says one of the salts, a difluoromethylation reagent, is being used in large quantities by pharmaceutical companies for optimizing lead compounds.

In the past year, Scripps also established research collaborations with Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Bristol-Myers Squibb. This new deal is the first multi-lab partnership for Scripps with Sigma-Aldrich, or any other chemical supplier.

Read more:

*     *     *