MARTINSRIED / MUNICH, Germany, July 30, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Successful Discovery Alliance Combines Two Leading Technologies
MorphoSys AG (FSE: MOR; Prime Standard Segment, TecDAX; OTC: MPSYY) announced today that its partner Heptares Therapeutics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sosei Group Corporation, has exercised an option to initiate a therapeutic antibody program arising from the alliance the companies entered into in February 2013. The program will leverage MorphoSys's Ylanthia® antibody library to generate novel antibody leads and addresses a GPCR target selected by Heptares, for which Heptares has engineered a StaR® antigen.
The development and commercialization of this program by Heptares is covered by the existing collaboration agreement between the two companies. MorphoSys will receive a licensing fee and R&D funding from Heptares and is eligible to receive milestone payments and royalties on the sales of any therapeutic antibodies resulting from the program. Further financial details were not disclosed.
Marlies Sproll, Chief Scientific Officer of MorphoSys AG commented: "Antibodies developed with our Ylanthia® platform are increasingly gaining a foothold in the GPCR target space. MorphoSys has already successfully applied its comprehensive capabilities to generate functional antibodies against GPCRs in several projects. We are now looking forward to seeing the progress of this first therapeutic antibody program driven by Heptares as part of our very productive discovery collaboration with them."
Malcolm Weir, CEO of Heptares, added: "The expertise at Heptares in GPCRs and MorphoSys's antibody discovery capabilities form a powerful combination to unlock GPCR-targeted antibody discovery. We are delighted with the progress that has been made in the alliance, and to be adding this first antibody development program to our pipeline. This achievement highlights the power and versatility of our StaR® technology in both small molecule and biologics discovery for expanding our own pipeline and in partnerships."
In February 2013, MorphoSys and Heptares Therapeutics, the clinical-stage GPCR structure-guided drug discovery and development company, announced an agreement to discover novel antibody therapeutics targeting G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Under the terms of the agreement, Heptares generates stabilized receptors (StaR®) for a set of GPCR disease targets proposed by MorphoSys. MorphoSys then utilizes its proprietary Ylanthia® library for the generation and further development of specific and functionally active anti-GPCR antibodies. The agreement also includes the option, now exercised by Heptares, to develop and commercialize a therapeutic antibody created by MorphoSys against a GPCR target selected by Heptares.
GPCRs are membrane proteins involved in a broad range of biological processes and diseases, including inflammatory disease, neuroscience indications, metabolic diseases and cancer. They comprise the single largest class of targets for pharmaceuticals currently on the market. Technical challenges, however, have meant that GPCRs have been largely intractable to therapeutic antibody development and to date only one GPCR-targeting antibody has been approved (for adult T-cell lymphoma), which reflects the central technical challenge of accessing reliable high-quality GPCR antigen.
The Heptares StaR® technology provides a breakthrough solution to this challenge, enabling the purification of properly folded and functional protein removed from the cell membrane. StaR proteins also preserve epitopes from the desired pharmacological state (active or inactive) of the GPCR, thereby enabling generation of panels of functional antibodies targeting the disease-relevant form of the receptor.
MorphoSys's Ylanthia® antibody library comprises more than 100 billion distinct, fully human antibodies, which makes it the industry's largest known antibody Fab library. Ylanthia's genetic composition translates into unprecedented structural diversity of the antibodies and offers optimized developability features. The library's diversity is expected to result in antibodies against previously inaccessible target molecules and to provide unique epitope coverage.
About MorphoSys:
MorphoSys developed HuCAL, the most successful antibody library technology in the pharmaceutical industry. By successfully applying this and other patented technologies, MorphoSys has become a leader in the field of therapeutic antibodies, one of the fastest-growing drug classes in human healthcare.
Together with its pharmaceutical partners, MorphoSys has built a therapeutic pipeline of more than 100 human antibody drug candidates and other biologics for the treatment of cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, and Alzheimer's disease, to name just a few. With its ongoing commitment to new antibody technology and drug development, MorphoSys is focused on making the healthcare products of tomorrow. MorphoSys is listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange under the symbol MOR. For regular updates about MorphoSys, visit http://www.morphosys.com
HuCAL®, HuCAL GOLD®, HuCAL PLATINUM®, CysDisplay®, RapMAT®, arYla® and Ylanthia® and 100 billion high potentials® are registered trademarks of MorphoSys AG.
Slonomics® is a registered trademark of Sloning BioTechnology GmbH, a subsidiary of MorphoSys AG.
About Heptares:
Heptares is a clinical-stage company creating transformative medicines targeting G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), a superfamily of 375 receptors linked to a wide range of human diseases. Our proprietary structure-based drug design technology enables us to engineer drugs for highly validated, yet historically undruggable or challenging, GPCRs. Using this approach, we have built an exciting pipeline of new medicines with the potential to transform the treatment of Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia, ADHD, migraine, addiction, metabolic disease and other indications. Our pharmaceutical partners include AstraZeneca, MedImmune, Cubist, MorphoSys and Takeda. Heptares is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sosei Group Corporation. For more information, please visit www.heptares.com and www.sosei.com.
HEPTARES is a registered trademark in the EU, Switzerland, US and Japan;
StaR® is a registered trademark in the EU and Japan.
This communication contains certain forward-looking statements concerning the MorphoSys group of companies. The forward-looking statements contained herein represent the judgment of MorphoSys as of the date of this release and involve risks and uncertainties. Should actual conditions differ from the Company's assumptions, actual results and actions may differ from those anticipated. MorphoSys does not intend to update any of these forward-looking statements as far as the wording of the relevant press release is concerned.
For more information, please contact:
MorphoSys AG
Dr. Claudia Gutjahr-Löser
Head of Corporate Communications & IR
Mario Brkulj
Associate Director Corporate Communications & IR
Alexandra Goller
Manager Corporate Communications & IR
Jessica Rush
Manager Corporate Communications & IR
Tel: +49 (0) 89 / 899 27-404
investors@morphosys.com
Heptares Therapeutics
Citigate Dewe Rogerson
Mark Swallow, David Dible, Pip Batty
+44 20 7282 2948
mark.swallow@citigatedr.co.uk
Heptares Therapeutics Ltd
Malcolm Weir, Chief Executive Officer (UK)
+44 1707 358 629
malcolm.weir@heptares.com
Dan Grau, President (USA)
+1 857 222 4586
dan.grau@heptares.com
Media Release (PDF) http://hugin.info/130295/R/1942118/702417.pdf
HUG#1942118