DOMANTIS AND PEPTECH ANNOUNCE SECOND DOMAIN ANTIBODY DEAL
Oncology Collaboration to Develop Therapeutic and In Vivo Imaging Products
Cambridge, UK and US; 20 July 2005… Domantis Limited, the Domain Antibody Therapeutics company, and Peptech Limited (ASX: PTD), an Australian biotechnology company, announced today that they have signed a second agreement to discover Domain Antibody (dAb) products. The new deal will develop therapeutic and in vivo diagnostic imaging products against the novel, broadly relevant oncology target that is part of the Peptech / Biosceptre joint venture.
Under the terms of the deal Domantis will be responsible for the development of a lead dAb against the Biosceptre oncology target. Peptech will undertake pre-clinical development and clinical trials. Subsequent commercialization will be the responsibility of the Peptech/Biosceptre joint venture. The initial research program to identify and optimize the dAb should take up to eighteen months and Domantis will receive annual fees, research funding, and revenue sharing.
Domantis’ CEO Robert Connelly commented, “Our first collaboration with Peptech produced a lead dAb that is now in pre-clinical development. We are excited to be starting the discovery of dAbs against this new target due to its enormous therapeutic potential. We also believe that dAbs will make ideal in vivo imaging molecules due to their small size and naturally short serum half-lives. We therefore expect this collaboration to produce several dAb products.“
Peptech and Biosceptre formed a 50/50 joint venture in November 2003 to develop and commercialize four potential cancer products using a new cancer specific marker identified and patented by Biosceptre which is present in a wide variety of cancer types. The new marker has wide application covering the early diagnosis and subsequent treatment of cancer.
Peptech Executive Chairman Mel Bridges said “We are delighted with the quality and performance of the first dAb against tumour necrosis factor (TNF) which was successfully transferred to Peptech earlier this year. We are looking forward to achieving similar success with Domantis on the Biosceptre cancer target”.
Peptech R&D Director Dr Phil Jennings noted that, “There is a significant unmet medical need for cancer imaging and therapy. We see an exciting potential for dAb based approaches against this target to serve those needs”.
Mr Connelly added, “To date, Domantis has met all its milestones in our seven alliances. This track record of success makes us an attractive partner and I am confident that we will sign several additional deals in the next year.”
ENDS
For more information contact:
Bob Connelly - Domantis + 1 617 225 0600
Nicki Brimicombe - NB PR + 44 1883 732353
Notes to Editors
Domantis is a drug discovery company that is leveraging its proprietary dominance in human dAbs to deliver therapies, which address large, unmet medical needs including inflammation (e.g. asthma, Crohns Disease) cancer (e.g.haematological and solid tumors) and autoimmune diseases (e.g. rheumatoid arthritis). In less than three years it has initiated more than a dozen proprietary therapeutic programs, several of which should enter clinical trials in 2006.
Therapeutic antibodies are a major commercial opportunity. Seventeen monoclonal antibodies have been approved for use to date and these are expected to generate sales exceeding $9 billion by 2006. Fully human dAbs, the smallest binding domains of a full antibody, combine the therapeutic benefits of small molecule drugs (formulation and delivery versatility, wide therapeutic target range, low cost) with those of full human antibodies (enormous diversity, high specificity, lower toxicity). Thus they have very broad therapeutic relevance.
The growing antibody market and the commercial potential of dAbs makes Domantis an attractive partner for the pharmaceutical industry and it has already struck deals with Peptech, Abbott Laboratories, ImClone, Tanox, and Argenta Discovery whilst also attracting funding from the European Union for several therapeutic collaborations. A series of dAb therapies derived from these collaborations should begin to enter the clinic in 2006.
Monoclonal antibodies were invented in the 1970’s at the UK Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB), which has remained at the forefront of therapeutic antibody research since that time. In 1989, scientists in the LMB laboratories of Sir Gregory Winter published the discovery of dAbs. This discovery led to the creation of an extensive portfolio of intellectual property covering the development and use of dAbs, the binding domains of human antibodies. Domantis has exclusive licenses and assignments to these pioneering inventions for dAbs and extensive intellectual property covering dAb libraries, methods of discovery, compositions, and formulations of dAbs. As a result, Domantis is the only company capable of fully exploiting the commercial therapeutic applications of human dAbs.
Sir Gregory and Dr Ian Tomlinson, world-renowned scientists from the MRC-LMB, launched Domantis in December 2000. Sir Gregory was also a founder of Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) plc. To date Domantis has raised $54 million from investors including 3i, Gray Ghost (Baltimore, US), Albany Ventures, MVM Limited (London, UK) and Peptech Limited. Domantis employs 51 staff and has laboratory facilities in Cambridge, UK and commercial offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US. See also www.domantis.com... |
