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In 1992, Dr. Lan Bo Chen, a Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School's
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Synta's scientific founder, co-founded a joint
venture with a Japanese company to discover and develop novel drug candidates.
This joint venture, structured as a majority-owned U.S.-based subsidiary of the
Japanese parent company, brought together two essential elements for successful
drug discovery: the scale, financial commitment, and chemistry expertise of the
corporate partner; and the biology expertise of the co-founders, leading
scientists from Harvard and MIT.
The joint venture was sold in 1997 and many of the original team continued with
Dr. Chen to found a similar venture called Shionogi BioResearch Corp with
Shionogi & Co., Ltd, a major Japanese pharmaceutical company. In late 2002,
Synta acquired the assets of Shionogi BioResearch Corp. Today, this acquisition
by Synta represents a significant component of the scientific foundation of the
company.
Because of Synta's unique history as a buyout of a fully formed drug discovery
company, Synta does not resemble a traditional biotechnology company, which is
often founded based on one particular technology or product and may have a
limited spectrum of pharmaceutical development capabilities. As a result, Synta
has a diversified pipeline of drug candidates developed over the previous
decade, and the full set of capabilities necessary to develop products from
target identification through lead optimization, preclinical development, and
clinical trials.
Our unique history has allowed us to combine the high-energy culture and
exciting growth opportunities of a new biotechnology company, with the drug
development assets and expertise of a mature pharmaceutical organization.
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