MorphoSys and Roche Announce Major Milestone in Research Collaboration
First Human Antibodies to Reach Alzheimer's Target
MARTINSRIED, Germany and MUNICH, Germany, July 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- MorphoSys AG (Neuer Markt: MOR), the Munich-based Biotechnology Company, and Roche today announced the achievement of an important milestone in their collaboration. In achieving the milestone MorphoSys generated and delivered several antibodies meeting predefined Roche success criteria. Roche will now further characterize the antibodies in preclinical studies and thereafter determine the most promising antibody in clinical trials. This achievement triggered an undisclosed milestone payment from Roche to MorphoSys.
MorphoSys and Roche initiated the collaboration to develop human antibodies targeting a Roche Alzheimer's disease target in September 2000. MorphoSys used its proprietary HuCAL® library to generate several antibodies against the Roche target, hitting the first two milestones in December 2000 and March 2001. In achieving these two milestones MorphoSys delivered a series of HuCAL® antibodies which were shown to bind selectively to the Roche target in human Alzheimer brain tissue sections. For the most recent milestone MorphoSys generated HuCAL® antibodies demonstrating high affinity binding to the Roche target in both in vitro assays and in an Alzheimer's animal model. MorphoSys will receive development related milestone payments and royalties on any marketed products emerging from the collaboration.
"A lead antibody derived from this achievement may prove to be a very promising treatment for Alzheimer's disease," commented Dr. Thomas von Rueden, Chief Scientific Officer, MorphoSys AG. "Moreover, we believe that these are the first fully human antibodies derived from a synthetic library to reach an Alzheimer's target in the brain, and as such, is yet a further demonstration that MorphoSys can engineer fully human antibodies against very challenging targets."
"This is another breakthrough on our way to find novel disease-modifying and symptomatic treatments for one of the most important medical problems facing mankind. The antibodies identified with MorphoSys' HuCAL® technology represent a significant step towards the treatment of Alzheimer's disease with a new class of medicines," said Andrew Sleight, Head of CNS research at Roche.
About MorphoSys:
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), Bristol-Myers Squibb (Wilmington, Delaware/USA), Centocor Inc. (Malvern, Pennsylvania/USA), GPC Biotech AG (Munich/Germany), Hoffmann-La Roche AG (Basel/Switzerland), ImmunoGen Inc. (Cambridge, Massachusetts/USA), Oridis Biomed GmbH (Graz/Austria), ProChon Biotech Ltd. (Rehovot/Israel), Schering AG (Berlin/Germany) and Xoma Ltd. (Berkeley, California/USA). For further information please visit the corporate website at: morphosys.com ... |
