Symphogen Enters into Strategic Collaboration with Genentech for Antibody Therapeutics in Infectious Disease
COPENHAGEN, Denmark--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Symphogen A/S announced today that it has entered into a global strategic collaboration with Genentech, Inc. for antibody therapeutics against three undisclosed infectious disease targets.
In this collaboration, Symphogen will apply its proprietary SymplexTM antibody discovery technology platform to identify novel infectious disease drug candidates. Furthermore, Genentech will gain access to Symphogen's SympressTM technology to produce recombinant polyclonal antibodies.
"We believe this alliance with Genentech is a recognition of our antibody discovery and expression technologies," said Kirsten Drejer, Ph.D., CEO of Symphogen. "This deal underscores our belief that Symphogen's technologies offer a valuable approach to create next- generation therapeutics that address critical unmet medical needs in the treatment of serious infections."
Dr. Drejer continued, "Through this deal we are supporting one of our major business objectives of establishing partnerships around our antibody discovery and manufacturing capabilities. Technology platform deals such as this complement our internal proprietary product development efforts utilizing recombinant polyclonal antibodies against multiple diseases. Symphogen's recombinant antibody technologies capture the diversity and specificity of the natural human immune response and lead to truly human antibody therapeutics."
Under the terms of the agreement, Genentech will make an undisclosed upfront payment to Symphogen, as well as an equity investment in Symphogen. In addition, Symphogen is eligible to receive milestone payments upon the success of certain research and development milestones, as well as royalties on any products developed and commercialized by Genentech as a result of this collaboration. The total value of the agreement has the potential to exceed $330 million, and Genentech will obtain an exclusive worldwide license to candidates developed through this agreement and will fund associated research and development costs.
About SymplexTM
The SymplexTM antibody discovery process begins by isolating B lymphocytes, which are responsible for making antibodies, from naturally immune human donors displaying a high number of antibodies against a particular target antigen, such as an infectious agent. The SymplexTM technology enables the exact identity of the original donor antibody repertoire to be maintained and mimics the natural human immune response. All processes leading to the isolation of specific antibodies have been automated, making SymplexTM a fast method to generate naturally high-affinity and high-specificity drug leads.
About SympressTM
Symphogen's SympressTM technology uses a proprietary mammalian expression platform to enable the manufacturing of target-specific, fully human recombinant polyclonal antibodies. Based on industry-standard antibody expression cell lines SympressTM enables consistent and reproducible manufacturing of recombinant polyclonal antibodies.
About Symphogen
Symphogen A/S is the leader in developing recombinant polyclonal antibodies (rpAb), a new class of biopharmaceuticals for the treatment of serious human diseases. By employing its pioneering antibody discovery and manufacturing technologies, Symphogen generates recombinant antibody compositions that capture the diversity and effectiveness of the natural immune system. Symphogen is building a proprietary product pipeline within several disease areas, including infectious diseases and cancer.
Symphogen is a private biopharmaceutical company with over 80 employees, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. Please see www.symphogen.com for further information on Symphogen.