OGS and BioInvent form Therapeutic Antibodies Alliance
OXFORD, UK and LUND, Sweden, March 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Oxford GlycoSciences Plc (LSE: OGS, Nasdaq: OGSI) and BioInvent International AB (SAX: BINV) announced today a three year collaboration to identify, develop, manufacture and commercialise novel therapeutic antibodies, which will target antigens provided by OGS and will be produced using BioInvent's novel antibody technology platform, n-CoDeR(TM).
Under the terms of this agreement, OGS will provide at least five target antigens per year, identified and validated through OGS' proteomics process. BioInvent will apply its proprietary n-CoDeR phage display library to identify antibodies targeted to OGS' antigens. The two companies will then work collaboratively to select and optimise therapeutic antibody candidates to take into development. BioInvent shall also manufacture the pre-clinical and clinical material in its cGMP-certified cell culture facility.
Although complete financial terms were not disclosed, OGS will contribute research funding and will pay a technology access fee to BioInvent. Therapeutic antibody candidates identified will then be developed either jointly by the two companies or solely by OGS. In the case of jointly- developed candidates both the costs of research and development and subsequent revenues will be equally split. BioInvent will be able to select at least one such antibody each year. For all other therapeutic antibody candidates, OGS will be solely responsible for further research and development activities and BioInvent will receive success-related milestone and royalty payments. OGS will retain all commercial rights for these solely developed products.
Further, subject to the approval of the BioInvent shareholders at its AGM on 17 April 2002, OGS will make an equity investment of $5 million in BioInvent at an agreed premium to the average closing price of BioInvent's shares over the ten days prior to this announcement. |
