Symphogen And Meiji Seika Kaisha Ltd. Achieve Milestone In Discovery Collaboration For Recombinant Polyclonal Antibody, Sym006

Main Category: Immune System / Vaccines
Also Included In: Infectious Diseases / Bacteria / Viruses
Article Date: 04 Dec 2008 - 8:00 PST

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Symphogen A/S and Meiji Seika Kaisha Ltd. (TSE: 2202) announced today the advancement of their collaboration for the discovery, development and commercialization of a recombinant polyclonal antibody therapeutic, Sym006, that targets an undisclosed bacterial pathogen. The companies, who initiated the collaboration in December 2006, are moving the program into preclinical development. As a result, Symphogen will receive a milestone payment from Meiji under the terms of the agreement.

"We are pleased to move our Sym006 partnership with Meiji forward into preclinical development, after achieving proof-of-concept for our recombinant polyclonal antibody therapeutic in relevant animal models," said Kirsten Drejer, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Symphogen A/S. "This is an important validation of our antibody discovery technology, Symplex™, which Meiji used to identify a broad representation of antibodies from naturally immune human donors. Meiji will continue development of Sym006 using Symphogen's Sympress™ technology for the manufacture and characterization of this recombinant polyclonal antibody product."

"Recombinant polyclonal antibodies are a new class of therapeutic, and we feel that they hold great promise for targeting bacterial pathogens, because of their ability to capture the diversity and specificity of the natural human immune response," said Dr. Osamu Makabe, SVP of R&D, Meiji Seika Kaisha. "We look forward to continuing our successful collaboration with Symphogen in order to further advance the Sym006 program."

Under the terms of the original agreement, Symphogen received an initial technology access fee from Meiji and is eligible to receive development milestone payments as well as royalties on worldwide net sales from any successfully developed products. Meiji has agreed to fund the development costs associated with the program. Symphogen has retained an option to enter into a 50/50 profit share and co-development collaboration with Meiji in the United States and European markets upon completion of the first Phase II clinical trial.

About Meiji Seika Kaisha Ltd.

Meiji Seika Kaisha, Ltd. is located in Tokyo, Japan and is operating its business in the fields of confectionaries and pharmaceuticals. In the Pharmaceutical division, Meiji is dedicated to the discovery, development and commercialization of a wide variety of pharmaceutical products throughout Japan and some countries outside of Japan, as well. The main areas of its interest are infectious diseases and CNS, and Meiji has strong capabilities and expertise in development and commercialization of antibiotic products. For more information on Meiji Seika Kaisha, Ltd. please visit the company's website at http://www.meiji.co.jp.

About Symplex™

The Symplex 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 Symplex 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 Symplex a fast method to generate naturally high-affinity and high-specificity drug leads.

About Sympress™

Symphogen's Sympress 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 Sympress 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 http://www.symphogen.com for further information on Symphogen.

Meiji Seika Kaisha Ltd