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Biotech / Medical : HuMAB companies -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nigel bates who wrote (149)	5/1/2001 3:51:34 PM
From: tuck	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1022

I have seen little discussion here of AVN's mouse-to-HuMab effort, Xenerex. It appears they aren't quite to market yet, but getting there. Anybody here care to handicap this dark horse in the mouse race? AVN's cold sore cream has created actual earnings, and there's other stuff in the pipeline, yet the stock seems cheap. Is it an also ran? >>SAN DIEGO, Feb 12, 2001 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Avanir Pharmaceuticals (AMEX: AVN chart, msgs) today announced that Xenerex Biosciences, a subsidiary of Avanir, has acquired IDEC Pharmaceuticals' (Nasdaq: IDPH chart, msgs) ownership interest in a certain patented process for generating human antibodies. In an agreement between the two companies, IDEC assigned its ownership in U.S. Patent No. 5,958,765 to Xenerex for the generation of fully human monoclonal antibodies using human spleen cells grafted into SCID mice. In exchange for assigning the rights to the patent to Xenerex, IDEC will receive a 5% ownership interest in Xenerex and royalties on sales resulting from Xenerex' use of the patent. The agreement provides that IDEC may not use the patented technology to provide or sell antibody generation services directly to third parties, but IDEC retains a limited right to use the technology to generate human antibodies against its own disease targets. "Acquisition of IDEC's ownership in the patent helps ensure that Xenerex has exclusive rights to provide or sell antibody generation services to third parties using this patented technology," said J. David Hansen, president and chief operating officer of Xenerex. "This patent, together with our other patents for this technology, provides a core foundation of intellectual property for our antibody generation processes." Previously, the companies co-owned the patent and each had the right to commercialize and use the technology. Xenerex Biosciences was formed last year by Avanir to commercialize certain technologies, including the acquired patent, for generating completely human monoclonal antibodies for therapeutic and diagnostic applications. Xenerex owns the rights to three U.S. and four foreign patents related to its antibody generation technology. Avanir Pharmaceuticals, based in San Diego, is engaged in research, development, commercialization, licensing and sales of innovative drug products and antibody generation services. The company's website is avanir.com.<< snip A snippet about Xenerex, with references to publications and patents for the abstract-crazed: avanir.com Cheers, Tuck