Morphosys strikes gold with another HuCAL deal
agreement that will see MorphoSys develop antibodies from its
proprietary HuCAL Gold antibody library.
It's another coup for the biotechnology company who have made quite a name for themselves with its Hucal antibody technology. The company have recently announced an extension to their existing therapeutic antibody collaboration with Novartis until May 2011.
"The Hucal technology supports MorphoSys's goal to introduce a large number of Hucal research antibodies into the market as quickly as possible," commented Simon Moroney, chief executive officer of MorphoSys.
"We will continue to add to our revenues over the next couple of years through an attractive royalty stream."
The HuCAL technology composes of an antibody library developed by MorphoSys. The technology itself is a concept for the in vitro generation of human antibodies. HuCAL provides a transition from a rapidly generated antibody fragment with binding characteristics to a fully human antibody drug candidate.
HuCAL is also a direct source of antibodies for all kinds of diagnostic and therapeutic applications.
Under the terms of the three-year agreement, Chemicon, a provider of research tools, may market the licensed HuCAL-based research antibodies for use in in vitro research as stand-alone products or as components of reagent kits.
In addition, Chemicon may also market the antibodies for clinical diagnostic applications.
"The MorphoSys HuCAL recombinant antibody technology will allow us to generate the antibodies our customers are looking for, and shorten our time to market in key target areas," said Jeffrey Linton, president of Chemicon.
"We believe that the access to these new antibodies will further strengthen our extremely broad portfolio of antibody and immunological reagents within our targeted strategic market segments."
Additional terms o the agreement will see MorphoSys receiving payment for antibody generation, optional additional fees, and royalties on all products. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
The parties are aiming to complete 100 research antibody projects per year over the three-year lifetime of the agreement.
MorphoSys' recent deals have not been limited to Europe and the US. In September last year it announced an agreement with Japanese pharmaceutical company Shionogi, to expand geographically into the Japanese market - currently the second largest individual pharmaceutical market in the world.
In September 2004, MorphoSys formed a strategic marketing cooperation with the Tokyo-based company, GeneFrontier Corporation, in order to also access the Japanese life science market.
The objective was to drive new business opportunities by establishing the HuCAL technology of MorphoSys as the premium brand for both research and therapeutic antibody generation in Japan.
