New Delhi, Mar 12 (UNI) Glenmark Pharmaceuticals today said its wholly-owned Swiss subsidiary, Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, has entered into a funded research agreement with US-based Dyax Corp.

''This is a very important step in Glenmark's entry in the field of Novel Biologics Research. Oncology and inflammation are areas of large unmet medical needs,'' Company Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Glenn Saidanha said.

''Our strategy to supplement NCE research with Biologics Research would allow us to build a strong pipeline in this area.

We expect the first Biologic product from Glenmark to enter clinics in 2009,'' he added Under the agreement, Dyax will perform funded research to identify therapeutic antibodies for three targets provided by Glenmark.

These research activities may be expanded to include additional targets.

Dyax will receive technology license fees and full time employee payments from Glenmark for the funded research as well as clinical milestone payments and royalties on net sales that may result from Glenmark's development and commercialisation of antibodies from Dyax's libraries.

The agreement also provides Glenmark with sublicenses to relevant third-party antibody phage display patents that may be used with Dyax's technology.

UNI