Envoy Achieves Milestone in Diabetes and Obesity Alliance with Merck

JUPITER, Fla.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Envoy Therapeutics, Inc., a drug discovery company, today announced that it has reached a milestone in its strategic alliance with Merck (known outside the US and Canada as MSD). The milestone was linked to Envoy successfully applying its bacTRAP® technology in certain tissues that are important to diabetes and obesity. Achievement of the milestone has entitled Envoy to receive a cash payment from Merck.

"We are pleased to have met this important milestone less than one year after initiating our alliance with Merck," said Brad Margus, Chief Executive Officer of Envoy. “We look forward to further advancing this program as we work together to discover new medicines in these critical therapeutic areas.”

In January 2010, Envoy announced an alliance with Merck focused on developing new treatments for diabetes and obesity. The alliance makes use of Envoy’s proprietary bacTRAP® technology platform for the identification of novel targets in specific cell types of interest in the physiology of diabetes and obesity.

About Diabetes and Obesity

At least 180 million people worldwide suffer from diabetes. Its incidence is increasing rapidly, and it is estimated that by the year 2030, this number will almost double. In the United States alone, there are roughly 24 million people with diabetes, while another 57 million people are estimated to be pre-diabetic. It has been estimated that diabetes costs $132 billion per year in the United States alone.

Obesity is a leading cause of death worldwide, with increasing prevalence in both adults and children. Health authorities view it as one of the most serious public health problems of the 21st century. Obesity increases the likelihood of numerous diseases including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, breathing difficulties during sleep, certain types of cancer, and osteoarthritis.

About Envoy Therapeutics

Envoy Therapeutics’ mission is to discover new drugs with superior efficacy and fewer side effects than existing treatments. The company’s bacTRAP® technology enables the identification of proteins in vivo that are produced by specific cell types without requiring the isolation of those cells. The technology is especially powerful in tissues of the brain, where many hundreds of cell types are intermingled. Because therapeutically modulating the activity of a specific cell type has until now been prevented by the inability to determine which proteins are uniquely expressed by that cell type, Envoy brings a new day in drug discovery.



CONTACT:

Envoy Therapeutics, Inc.
Robert Middlebrook, 561-210-7705
Chief Financial Officer

KEYWORDS:   United States  North America  Florida

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS:   Health  Biotechnology  Clinical Trials  Pharmaceutical  Research  Other Science  Diabetes  FDA  Science  General Health

MEDIA:

Logo
 Logo