GSK continues to develop its drug discovery pipeline of products with the announcement it has formed an early stage agreement with Cellzome for its Episphere technology to develop and treat immuno-inflammatory disease.

This announcement follows a number already released in 2010 by Pfizer and underlines their progressive commitment to inflammatory research

This agreement also further underlines the increased commercial links that big pharma are actively pursuing to identify novel discovery and development technology platforms that have the capacity to produce a range of therapeutic compounds that would not otherwise be possible without the technology developed by companies such as Cellzome.

This partnership is the second that GSK has announced with Cellzome and further enhances their growing reputation as a developer of technology platforms that are of significant commercial value.

It follows on from a collaboration first announced in September 2008 by GSK to license Cellzomes Kinobeads technology for kinase targeted therapeutics to treat inflammatory disease. This agreement has subsequently achieved three milestone payments and the overall deal could be worth around $1.4 billion. It represents a substantial revenue stream to compliment the future development of Cellzome and their commercial strategies.

If Cellzome continue to produce technology platforms that offer big pharma such a development advantage in this competitive field, then it will continue to be a valued partner within the industry.