XOMA Signs Antibody Discovery Collaboration With Kaketsuken
8:02a ET November 3, 2009 (GlobeNewswire)
XOMA Ltd. (Nasdaq:XOMA) and Kaketsuken have entered into a collaboration involving multiple proprietary XOMA antibody research and development technologies, including a new XOMA antibody phage display library, and a suite of integrated information and data management systems. Subject to certain technical verification required under the collaboration agreement, Kaketsuken has agreed to pay XOMA a fee of $8 million and XOMA will be entitled to milestone payments and royalties on product sales. Founded in 1926 in Japan as the Chemo-Sero-Therapeutic Research Institute, Kaketsuken, a research foundation with current annual revenues of approximately US $350 million, has blood plasma products, vaccines and therapeutics and is developing therapeutic solutions for infectious, and other diseases.
"Antibody technologies are increasingly important in the development of novel therapeutics for a wide range of diseases so it is essential to find the best technologies and partners to maximize the chances for success," said Dr. Hiroshi Mizokami, Executive Director of Kaketsuken. "With XOMA's successful record of antibody candidates and drug development relationships, we are confident that they can provide us with the technologies we need to accelerate our antibody development programs. We look forward to a mutually beneficial relationship."
The centerpiece of the collaboration is access to a highly diverse antibody phage display library constructed by XOMA. Phage display libraries enable rapid generation and screening of large numbers of candidate antibodies and antibody fragments to select for optimal binding and other characteristics. XOMA's new, proprietary antibody phage display library is one of a new category of libraries being developed by XOMA scientists to overcome existing limitations in library design by combining very high diversity and "best in class" techniques with XOMA's proprietary and patent-protected technologies to enable the selection of antibodies with very specific and high affinity binding and potency characteristics to an antigen of choice.
"We are pleased to collaborate with Kaketsuken, an innovator in immunology and developer of the DPT vaccine," said Steven B. Engle, XOMA's Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. "This is the third technology collaboration XOMA has initiated this year, which combined are expected to result in fee revenue totaling $43 million and potential future milestone and royalty payments. We look forward to additional agreements that demonstrate the value of our extensive antibody expertise and increase the return on our research and development investment."
