Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Biotech / Medical : Cambridge Antibody Technology Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: paradigm7241 who wrote (71)	3/1/2000 10:01:00 AM
From: rexnine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 625

Yahoo! HGSI Alliance Cambridge Antibody Tech Group PLC 1 March 2000 CAMBRIDGE ANTIBODY TECHNOLOGY GROUP PLC - 1 March 2000 For Further Information Contact: Cambridge Antibody Technology Group plc Tel: +44 (0) 1763 263233 Dr David Chiswell, Chief Executive Officer John Aston, Finance Director Rowena Gardner, Communications Manager HCC.De Facto Tel: +44 (0) 171 496 3300 City/Financial, Sue Charles Trade, Nikul Odedra CAT AND HUMAN GENOME SCIENCES ('HGSI') CREATE MAJOR ALLIANCE DEDICATED TO DEVELOPING HUMAN ANTIBODY THERAPEUTICS AGAINST GENOMICS TARGETS HGSI and CAT broaden relationship with commitment by HGSI of $67 million in up front funding CAT also announces it is at an advanced stage of preparation for a fund raising Melbourn, UK.. Cambridge Antibody Technology ('CAT') (LSE: CAT)today announced a new, 10 year agreement with Human Genome Sciences Inc (HGSI) (Nasdaq: HGSI) for the development of custom-developed, fully human antibody therapeutics against genomics-derived disease targets. HGSI and CAT plan to combine their resources to develop and sell a significant number of therapeutic antibody products. CAT will have access to selected HGSI derived sequence and biological information and has the right to select up to twenty-four proprietary HGSI antigens for preclinical development. CAT has rights to develop six such products on its own. HGSI is entitled to clinical development milestones and royalty payments on such products. HGSI has the option to share clinical development costs and to share the profits equally with CAT on up to eighteen such products. The agreement provides HGSI with rights to use CAT technology to develop and sell fully human antibodies for therapeutic and diagnostic purposes. HGSI will pay CAT clinical development milestones and royalties based on product sales. HGSI also has rights to use CAT antibody technology for the use and sale of certain research tools and CAT will receive a proportion of revenues on such sales. Under the agreement HGSI will buy 1.67 million shares of CAT for the sterling equivalent of US$55 million, giving it an initial equity stake of approximately six per cent. in CAT. The investment, which is subject to approval by CAT shareholders, will be made at a price of œ20.75 per share, being a 20 per cent. premium to the average share price for the 10 days preceding this announcement. HGSI also will pay an additional $12 million in licensing fees to CAT which includes research support at CAT for three years to help develop HGSI human antibody products. The total up-front cash receipts to CAT will be equivalent to $67 million. Dr. David Chiswell, Chief Executive Officer of CAT, commented, 'We are delighted to have broadened the scope and potential of our relationship with HGSI, particularly as it is only six months since the signature of our initial alliance. Genomics is the future source of targets and human antibodies clearly will be a major class of future drugs: this alliance unites both with a truly powerful synergy. Furthermore, the commercial potential of custom-developed human antibody drugs is being increasingly recognised by the pharmaceutical industry. Adding this broadened relationship with HGSI to CAT's other alliances with major companies including Searle, Wyeth-Ayerst and BASF Pharma has established CAT's position as having access to substantial numbers of drug targets and to partners to be able to generate a substantial pipeline of human antibody drugs. This gives CAT the opportunity to aggressively develop and commercialise its own pipeline of drugs.' William A. Haseltine, Ph.D., Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of HGSI said, 'This agreement binds together two powerful modern technologies -- genomics and human antibody product development. We plan to work very closely with scientists at CAT both on the development of our initial products as well on the development of a significant number of joint products.' Craig A. Rosen, Ph.D., Executive Vice President, Research and Development, of HGSI, said, 'I am delighted that we can combine HGSI's deep expertise and knowledge of genomics with CAT's cutting edge human antibody technology. CAT's phage display technology for the production of fully human antibodies is ideally suited to high throughput technologies needed to take advantage of our unique genomic resources. Our two scientific teams have already proved that they work well together. Over the past six months HGSI and CAT have made substantial progress in developing a fully human therapeutic antibody to a specific antigen under the terms of our prior agreement. We all look forward to an exciting future with our partners at CAT.' CAT also announces that it is in the advanced stages of preparation with its advisers, Deutsche Bank and Cazenove, for a fund raising, both in the UK and internationally, to expand and continue the Company's successful operations/strategy. It is expected that further details will be announced in the near future.