Momenta Pharmaceuticals Announces Goals for Glycoprotein Program
Thursday January 13, 9:01 am ET
Extends Product Applications of its Characterization Technology Beyond Heparins
My money's still on GlycoFi - or would be, if they were public...
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Jan. 13 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Nasdaq: MNTA - News), a biotechnology company developing drugs based on sugar sequencing technology, today announced its goals relating to the application of its proprietary technology to therapeutic protein drugs containing sugars. Momenta's goals for its glycoprotein program in 2005 are to characterize the sugars on multiple glycoprotein drugs and to establish a glycoprotein product partnership.
"We believe that we have an opportunity to take our proprietary capability to characterize complex sugars and apply it to the sizeable market of glycoproteins," said Alan Crane, Chairman and CEO of Momenta. The global market for therapeutic proteins exceeded $33 billion in 2003. Given that most of the leading marketed therapeutic proteins and antibodies are glycosylated, or coated with complex sugars, Momenta believes there is a substantial opportunity for its characterization technology to be applied to analyze major marketed products. To date, it has not been possible to thoroughly characterize the sugars on glycoproteins due to lack of available technology. Glycosylation determines critical product properties, including efficacy, safety, specificity, half-life, and immunogenicity.
Momenta's characterization capabilities for glycoproteins can be applied to pursue multiple product and partnering opportunities, including enabling characterization-based life cycle management by better understanding existing marketed products, facilitating follow-on or generic versions of glycoproteins, or creating improved versions of glycoproteins through rational engineering.
"We believe that the application of our characterization technology to glycoproteins significantly broadens our product opportunities and will effectively complement our existing portfolio of heparin-based products such as M-Enoxaparin, M-Dalteparin, and M118," concluded Mr. Crane.
About Momenta
Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a biotechnology company specializing in the sequencing and engineering of complex sugars for the development of improved versions of existing drugs, the development of novel drugs and the discovery of new biological processes. Momenta is also utilizing its ability to sequence sugars to create technology-enabled generic products. The Company's most advanced product candidate is M-Enoxaparin, a technology- enabled generic version of Lovenox®. Based on its understanding of complex sugars, Momenta has created a diversified pipeline of novel discovery and development candidates. Momenta was founded in 2001 and is headquartered in Cambridge, MA.
To receive additional information about Momenta, please visit our website at momentapharma.com, which does not form a part of this press release. |
