MUNICH, Germany, Nov. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- MorphoSys AG (Neuer Markt: Mor) reported revenues for the first nine months of the year of 12.2 million DM, an increase of 230 % compared with the first nine months of the previous year (3.7 million DM). Operating expenses increased according to plan to 19.2 million DM, an increase of 82 % over the same time period last year (10.5 million DM). The company reported a net loss for the first nine months of 2000 of 5.8 million DM or 1.66 DM per share (1999: -7.8 million DM, -2.32 DM per share) improvements of 25 % and 28.5 % respectively over the same period in 1999. The results reflect the progress of the commercialisation of the HuCAL technology. New collaboration agreements increased to six in calendar 2000.
Total revenues for the third quarter increased by 264 % to 4.1 million DM over the third quarter 1999. Operating expenses increased to 6.9 million DM for the quarter and were 71.3 % higher in comparison with the same period of 1999. MorphoSys reported a net loss for the third quarter of 2000 of 2.4 million DM or 0.69 DM per share. This result represents improvements of 24 % and 21.6 % respectively over the same time period in 1999.
Third quarter highlights included:
-- New collaboration with Hoffmann-La Roche (Basel, Switzerland) on
therapeutic antibodies for a novel treatment of Alzheimer's Disease
-- New collaboration with ImmunoGen (Cambridge, Mass/USA) on therapeutic
antibodies against certain cancers
-- Achievement of first milestone in the immunology collaboration with GPC
Biotech (Munich/Germany). Through optimization, MorphoSys increased
the affinity of the initially generated HuCAL antibodies by a factor of
100.
``The third quarter brought more solid commercial progress for MorphoSys,'' said Simon Moroney, Chief Executive Officer, MorphoSys AG. ``We are increasingly benefiting from companies recognizing the power of our HuCAL antibody library as the best technology for their therapeutic antibody programmes.''
MorphoSys develops and applies innovative technologies for the production of synthetic antibodies which accelerate drug discovery and target characterization. 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 Bayer (Berkeley, California/USA), Roche AG (Basel/Switzerland), DuPont Pharmaceuticals (Wilmington, Delaware/USA), Millennium (Cambridge, Mass/USA), Chiron (Emeryville, California/USA), GPC Biotech AG (Munich/Germany) ProChon Biotech (Revohot/Israel), Eos Biotechnology (South San Francisco/California/USA) and ImmunoGen (Cambridge, Mass/USA). |
