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

To: nigel bates who wrote (365)	1/25/2003 10:01:40 AM
From: nigel bates	Respond to of 1022

(Domantis; formerly Diversys) - parking... ABBOTT PARK, IL, USA and Cambridge, UK and USA, 4 November, 2002… Abbott Laboratories and Domantis Limited today announced a research and license agreement to discover multiple therapeutic products based on Domantis' proprietary Domain Antibody technology. The agreement calls for Domantis and Abbott to collaborate on the identification and optimization of Domain Antibodies to the first two undisclosed Abbott therapeutic targets, and provides Abbott with non-exclusive access to Domantis’ Domain Antibody Technology for use with additional therapeutic targets. Under the terms of the agreement, Domantis will receive funding for collaborative research activities and license fees for technology access. If therapeutic products result from the collaboration or Abbott’s use of the Domain Antibody Technology, Domantis would also receive license fees and development milestones as well as royalties on commercial sales. Domain Antibodies, or dAbs, are the smallest functional binding units of antibodies, consisting of the variable regions of either the human heavy (VH) or light (VL) chain. These molecules are less than one-tenth the size of a conventional antibody molecule. Domantis has created a range of very large and highly diverse libraries of Domain Antibodies which it uses as a source of potent drug candidates that interact with targets of interest. In this way, Domantis seeks to combine the advantages of antibodies (enormous natural diversity and high specificity) with those of smaller compounds (potential for lower manufacturing costs and multiple modes of delivery). "We are excited to be joining forces with Domantis, a recognized pioneer and innovator in the emerging field of single domain antibody technologies," said Alejandro Aruffo, Ph.D., president, Abbott Bioresearch Center and divisional vice president, global pharmaceutical research and development, Abbott Laboratories. "Having access to novel new antibody technology will significantly strengthen our antibody discovery technology platform and therefore our capability to bring additional breakthrough antibody-derived therapies to patients. This agreement represents another important step in our continuing commitment toward building a diverse robust and sustainable antibody platform within Abbott." "We are very pleased to be working with a major pharmaceutical company like Abbott Laboratories, which has such a commitment to antibody therapeutics and an established track record with bringing these technologies to the clinic," said Robert Connelly, CEO, Domantis. "We expect both Domantis and Abbott to benefit greatly from a close association between our respective research and development teams. We look forward to working with Abbott to bring fully-human Domain Antibodies to market." Domantis was launched as Diversys Limited in December 2000 by Dr. Greg Winter (a co-founder of Cambridge Antibody Technology) and Dr. Ian Tomlinson of the UK Medical Research Council's (MRC) Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Centre for Protein Engineering, with the backing of the MRC and MVM Limited, the London-based life sciences investment specialist. Dr. Winter and his group at the MRC invented the process of "humanizing" mouse monoclonal antibodies and later invented the technology for creating vast libraries of fully human antibody fragments. Domantis has exclusive rights to this fully human antibody technology for selecting Domain Antibodies for therapeutic, diagnostic and research uses. The Company's first commercial partnership was established in April 2001 with Peptech Ltd., the quoted Australian biotechnology company, for the development of four Domain Antibody therapeutic products. Domantis is a private company with laboratory facilities in Cambridge, UK and commercial offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA... Intellectual Property The Company was founded with a substantial base of rights to a series of fundamental patents in the protein engineering and antibody repertoire fields. In the field of Domain Antibodies, Domantis has exclusive rights from the MRC to the Winter II, Huse/Lerner/Winter, McCafferty, Griffiths and a number of other patent estates that are key to the creation and selection of antibody fragments. These rights include granted US patent 6,291,158 that claims repertoires of Domain Antibodies. Domantis also has rights to this intellectual property for use with other antibody formats outside of the field of therapeutics. In addition to these licenses, Domantis is the owner of a number of patent rights filed over the past five years by the MRC including those covering Xpress™ Libraries and the Matrix Screening™ technology. Domantis expects to add significantly to this intellectual property position as a result of its rights to certain future inventions created at the MRC’s laboratories and its ongoing R & D activities...