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The National Foundation For Cancer Research and Bridge Pharmaceuticals...

May 20, 2005 -- The National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) and Bridge Pharmaceuticals announced today that they have formed a collaborative research program designed specifically to accelerate novel anti-cancer drug discovery and development. The unique alliance creates a new initiative and development model for non-profit and for-profit partnership targeted at developing cancer drugs at a lower cost, with higher efficiency and is expected to generate synergy to impact the pre-clinical and clinical development of new anti-cancer therapies.



The partnership will allow both NFCR and Bridge Pharmaceuticals to jointly fund, manage and direct cancer research programs in both the U.S. and Asia. This will also accelerate NFCR's global research programs and cancer research centers, including an Asian tissue bank, new therapies discovery and development centers, and a distributed computing network that currently has over 3.2 million individual participants. Bridge Pharmaceuticals will use its world-class facilities and technical expertise to manage and conduct the pre-clinical and clinical development of promising drug leads and leading translational research efforts.



"The typical drug discovery and development process currently takes 12-15 years from the research bench to reach the patient's bedside," said Sujuan Ba, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer for the National Foundation for Cancer Research. "Through our collaborative program with Bridge Pharmaceuticals, we hope to pool together the power of our global research network with the tremendous technical and development resources in the US and Asia, maximizing both our efforts to bring new anti-cancer drugs to patients much quicker."



The goal of the partnership is to take existing research platforms and findings to the next level, introducing them to the translational stage and seeking funds to turn these research successes into viable clinically effective drugs. Taking a new approach to oncology drug discovery, the partnership seeks to minimize costs while maximizing benefits from a collaborative approach. "Using both NFCR and Bridge Pharmaceutical's vast network in China and around the world, our goal is to push these discoveries further up the drug development pipeline," said Ba.



Despite continued scientific advances and a declining number of overall cancer deaths, cancer surpassed heart disease in 2005 as the number one health killer in America and on the rise worldwide as millions of people are diagnosed with cancer each year. Cancer drug development continues to be a very complex and challenging task due to the complexity of cancer and the time and capital required to conduct scientific research, clinical trials and drug efficacy. "It is through synergistic partnerships such as this one, that are the most efficient way to accomplish this difficult mission," said Glenn Rice, Ph.D., President of Bridge Pharmaceuticals.



National Foundation for Cancer Research

Since its founding, the NFCR has spent more than $210 million funding basic science cancer research and prevention education focused on understanding how and why cells become cancerous. NFCR is dedicated to funding scientists who are discovering cancer's molecular mysteries and translating these discoveries into therapies that hold the hope for curing cancer.



NFCR has established a powerful collaborative network of nine research centers and more than 30 laboratories around the world in the fight against cancer. NFCR scientists work together to share knowledge so that discoveries at the bench can be accelerated to the bedside. NFCR is "Research for a Cure". For more visit www.NFCR.org or call (800) 321-CURE.



About Bridge Pharmaceuticals

Bridge Pharmaceuticals is a US-based SRI International (formally Stanford Research Institute) spin-off company focused on providing lower cost, FDA compliant drug development services in Asia for US and EU based clients. The company uses an exclusive network of pre-qualified flagship Asian laboratories with validated SOP's and QA audits. This, together with Bridge technical, quality assurance and regulatory staff directly managing the studies in the US and on the ground in Asia, leaves nothing to chance. For more information, visit www.BridgePharmaceuticals.com or call (650) 859-3853.



For media inquiries:    


Silas Deane, V.P. Communications, National Foundation for Cancer Research, (301) 654-1250, ext. 105 or e-mail protected from spam bots.



Glenn Rice, President, Bridge Pharmaceuticals, 650-859-4413, e-mail protected from spam bots



Media Contact: Silas Deane   
   


Glenn Rice, President

National Foundation for Cancer Research

Bridge Pharmaceuticals

(301) 654-1250   
   
   


650-859-4413

e-mail protected from spam bots   


e-mail protected from spam bots

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