MorphoSys Unveils New Antibody Library
MARTINSRIED, Munich, Germany, Nov. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- MorphoSys AG (Neuer Markt: MOR) today announced the development and release of a new proprietary antibody library, HuCAL® GOLD. The library is to be presented at the 12th IBC Antibody Engineering conference in San Diego, California. Initial results show that the new library and related screening system lead to faster and more efficient antibody generation, as well as enabling the achievement of higher average affinity antibodies and more diverse fully human antibodies. Furthermore, the new library increases the Company's independence from several on-going patent disputes.
HuCAL® GOLD contains several significant innovations over previous versions of the HuCAL® library and is combined with the Company's proprietary CysDisplay(TM) screening technology. Importantly, the new library possesses diverse repertoires in all six CDR regions of the underlying antibody genes, meaning that HuCAL® GOLD provides more diversity than previous versions. Moreover in combination with the CysDisplay(TM) screening technology it is expected that the recovery of high affinity antibodies will be facilitated. The Company has granted patents and pending patent applications covering the antibody library technology and related screening methods and anticipates full freedom to practice. As such, the new library and screening system is intended to be a cornerstone of a future Company product development program.
``HuCAL® GOLD is the culmination of several years of technological development of our proprietary HuCAL® platform,'' commented Dr. Thomas von Rueden, Chief Scientific Officer of MorphoSys AG. ``We already have good evidence that its superior properties enable us to make better antibodies. Of equal importance is the fact that most of the technology underlying HuCAL® GOLD is proprietary to MorphoSys and independent of other technologies -- thus the new library clarifies even further our IP position.''
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 worldwide for human antibody generation. The Company currently has licensing and research collaborations with Bayer (Berkeley, California/USA), Biogen Inc. (Cambridge, Massachusetts/USA), Centocor Inc. (Malvern, Pennsylvania/USA), DuPont Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Wilmington, Delaware/USA), Eos Biotechnology Inc. (San Francisco, California/USA), GPC Biotech AG (Munich/Germany), Hoffmann-La Roche AG (Basel/Switzerland), ImmunoGen Inc. (Cambridge, Massachusetts/USA), Millennium Inc. (Cambridge, Mass/USA), Oridis Biomed GmbH (Graz/Austria) and ProChon Biotech Ltd. (Rehovot/Israel). For further information please visit the corporate website at: morphosys.com.
Members of the Management Team of MorphoSys AG will host a conference call to discuss the above on November 28, 2001 at 10:00 a.m. CET. A playback of the call will be available until December 7, 2001 on dial-in number: ++49-69-92-05-34-44.... |
