NEWARK, DE--(Marketwired - Jan 15, 2014) - iBio, Inc. (NYSE MKT: IBIO) announced today that the company and Caliber Biotherapeutics have designated a proprietary fusion protein for cancer treatment as the first product target for advancement on the iBioLaunch™ platform under the License and Collaboration Agreement between the company and Caliber dated February 14, 2013.
"In addition to its other attributes, iBio technology produces antibodies efficiently," stated Robert Erwin, iBio's president. "We are confident our technology will prove superior to traditional animal cell methods for efficient delivery of this promising new class of fusion-protein biotherapeutics, and we look forward to working with Caliber to rapidly move this molecule into clinical trials."
"This further collaboration with iBio gives us even more resources to rapidly optimize our production system," commented Dr. Barry Holtz, Caliber Biotherapeutics' chief science and technology officer. "At Caliber we have an advantage in mAb development and large scale production. We do not have to develop a new cell line for each mAb construct. In addition, our bioreactors are individual plants so we do not have to scale-up to larger reactor components. We just grow 2.2 million individual bioreactors if necessary. This allows very rapid process and clinical development and shortens the time to large scale production and ultimately time to market."
Under the terms of the agreement between iBio and Caliber, iBio will receive license and milestone fees for development of product targets. Caliber is responsible for funding clinical development and commercialization of such collaboration products, and iBio is entitled to receive royalties on such product sales and other revenues. Detailed financial terms of the agreement have not been disclosed.
