Alexion Pharmaceuticals Licenses Novel Display System For Human Combinatorial Antibody Libraries
- T7 Vector System Accelerates the Discovery of New Antibody Drug Candidates -
CHESHIRE, Conn., Oct. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nadsdaq: ALXN) today announced that it has acquired exclusive worldwide commercial rights to a powerful new technology that allows the rapid discovery of new antibody drug candidates. The technology, which is protected by U.S. Patent No. 5,766,905, entitled ``Cytoplasmic Bacteriophage Display System,'' involves a novel application of the T7Select® Phage Display System from Novagen. This new technology is an in vitro antibody discovery tool based on the display of combinatorial antibody libraries on the surface of the bacteriophage T7. Alexion's license covers human therapeutic antibodies. Financial terms were not disclosed.
``We are delighted to have executed this exclusive agreement with Novagen for the use of the T7Select® System for antibody display and have already begun to exploit the system in the discovery of human recombinant antibodies,'' stated Dr. Stephen P. Squinto, Executive V.P. and Head of Research at Alexion. ``We expect to take advantage of T7Select's unique properties to build novel combinatorial human antibody libraries in order to significantly enhance our ability to identify new human antibody drug candidates.''
``We are extremely pleased and excited to license the T7Select® System to Alexion for their human therapeutic antibody program,'' stated Dr. Robert Mierendorf, President of Novagen. ``As a supplier of products for basic research it is gratifying to see this technology find such important applications in drug discovery. We hope that Alexion's efforts in using the T7Select® System will result in novel therapeutics for a variety of diseases.''
About T7Select® System
The T7Select® System is extremely powerful and offers several advantages over other in vitro antibody display systems. The T7 bacteriophage is very simple to propagate and due to its rapid growth, is well suited for display systems requiring multiple rounds of selection. T7 is extremely stable in a variety of agents, allowing a wide range of conditions to be employed during the biopanning procedure. T7 entirely assembles in the bacterial cytoplasm, eliminating the need for antibody secretion. This property distinguishes T7 from the more common filamentous bacteriophage display systems both functionally and from an intellectual property point of view.
``The T7Select® System adds to our arsenal of proprietary antibody discovery tools,'' said Dr. Kathy Bowdish, President of Alexion Antibody Technologies, Inc. ``Though the power and utility of the T7Select® System for antibody discovery has yet to be fully recognized, it will likely be an appropriate format for the discovery and optimization of new therapeutic antibody candidates.'' Dr. Russell Rother, Senior Director of Discovery Research at Alexion, added, ``We are pleased to add the T7Select® System to our antibody discovery platform. Working with the scientific team at Novagen, we have already demonstrated the potential utility of this system to express and display a diverse library of a billion recombinant human antibodies.''
Novagen, Inc. a brand of CN Biosciences, an affiliate of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, provides innovative molecular biology products to the worldwide scientific research community. Novagen is located in Madison, WI, USA. |
