Re So do you consider CAT, MEDX, ABGX & PDLI to be the major players or are there others?
One potential major player, to add to MorphoSys, is Celltech (trades as NYSE ADR with symbol CLL). Celltech has several humanized Abs in trials; humanization of AHP's Mylotarg was originally done by Celltech, and they hold a patent (Adair) that *may* lead to broad coverage of some Abs humanized by others.
Another interesting one is Applied Molecular Evolution (AME, previously known as Ixsys), which filed for an IPO a few months ago. Here is the S-1 filing at 10KWizard: 10kwizard.com
AME humanized Vitaxin, a molecule later licensed to MEDI. It is in phase II for cancer indications. Did also Vitaxin-2, a much higher affinity version, also licensed to MEDI.
Two other companies with "interesting" antibody patents are IMGN (humanization by "resurfacing") and Xoma ("human engineering"). Not clear at this point if these patents will ultimately have much value. As an aside, IMGN's Ab-small molecule "toxin" coupling technology may be a good complement to a broad variety of human or humanized anti-cancer antibodies. At least Genentech seems to think so.
Last, and most speculative, is an outfit, AVN, with patents on "human" Abs from SCID-Hu mice. Not clear to me if this should work at all, but they keep mentioning in their SEC filings (even when they were known as Lidak). The patent is shared with IDPH. And, BTW, IDPH has some "primatized" Abs in trials; these are macaque-human chimeric Abs. Probably very close to "real" human Abs, when one can get them. IDPH has also made a couple of humanized Abs, starting with mouse ones, suggesting to me that this "primatization" procedure is not always effective, probably because it is hard to get the macaque MAb in the first place.
Of the above, I have a very small chunk of CLL. If this was a US company, it would be worth at least 2X what it is now.
Some links:
(1) IMGN's paper in PNAS (with link to free full text access) on "resurfacing"
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
(2) Xoma's paper on "human engineering"
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
(searches with same authors should lead to the patents)
(3) Vitaxin-2 (or at least one point something - also with link to free full text. Ixsys => AME):
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
PB |
