July 6 /PRNewswire/ -- MorphoSys AG, the Munich-based biotechnology company, today announced the expansion of its existing agreement with the DuPont Pharmaceuticals Company. Under the new agreement, DuPont Pharmaceuticals will extend its current research licence to MorphoSys' proprietary HuCAL antibody libraries, and the two companies will collaborate in developing a system for fully automated antibody generation called AutoCAL. AutoCAL will utilise the HuCAL technology, and will enable the high throughput generation of antibodies.
MorphoSys will receive payments for DuPont Pharmaceuticals' research use of the HuCAL libraries and for the installation of AutoCAL at DuPont Pharmaceuticals' Wilmington, DE facility. Scientists from the two companies will collaborate in optimising the AutoCAL system for the generation of research antibodies. In the event that DuPont Pharmaceuticals exercises an option to develop antibodies for commercial use as therapeutic or diagnostic agents, MorphoSys will receive licence payments, milestones and royalties. MorphoSys retains all rights in the AutoCAL system. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
``The expansion of our deal with DuPont Pharmaceuticals reflects DuPont's confidence in our HuCAL technology to aid in drug research,'' commented Dan Menichella, President, MorphoSys USA Inc. ``AutoCAL is an important step towards our goal of leveraging HuCAL to take MorphoSys into the leading position in technology for antibody generation. This collaboration will help us establish AutoCAL as a user-friendly system which is tailored to the needs of pharmaceutical companies for fast antibody generation for genomics-driven research programmes.''
MorphoSys develops and applies innovative technologies for the production of synthetic antibodies which accelerate drug discovery and target characterisation. Founded in 1992, the Company's proprietary Human Combinatorial Antibody Library (HuCAL) technology is used by researchers world-wide for human antibody generation. The Company currently has licensing and research collaborations with DuPont Pharmaceuticals (Wilmington, Delaware), Millennium (Cambridge, Mass), Chiron Corporation (Emeryville, California), GPC AG (Munich/Germany) and ProCHon Biotech (Revohot/Israel). In December 1999 the Company signed a major R&D collaboration with Bayer-AG (Leverkusen/Germany). The latest collaboration was signed on June 14, 2000, with Eos Biotechnology (South San Francisco/California). |
