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XOMA and Affimed Sign Antibody Cross-License and Collaboration Agreement
05 Oct 2006 -
XOMA Ltd. and Affimed Therapeutics AG have signed a cross-license and collaboration agreement for antibody-related technologies. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The agreement provides XOMA with a license under Affimed's antibody library patents for antibody discovery purposes, as well as for the development and commercialization of antibodies. In addition, Affimed has agreed to build two customized patient-derived human antibody phage display libraries according to XOMA specifications.
The agreement provides Affimed with a license to use XOMA's Bacterial Cell Expression (BCE) technology for research purposes, with an option to acquire a BCE license for production and commercialization of antibodies, in particular for Affimed's proprietary TandAb and Flexibody technologies. XOMA also has agreed to provide Affimed with cell line development and process development services specific to a TandAb therapeutic product candidate that Affimed is currently developing.
"Affimed's custom libraries represent a powerful addition to XOMA's existing collection of the seven leading commercial human antibody phage display libraries. The advantage of patient-derived libraries is their potential to contain unique antibody candidates for the therapeutic area of interest," said Jack Castello, chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer of XOMA. "This collaboration extends XOMA's leadership in therapeutic antibodies, providing a single point of access to an even broader fully-integrated antibody discovery and development platform."
"We are delighted to enter into this broad cross-license and collaboration agreement with XOMA" said Rolf H. Günther MD PhD, chief executive officer of Affimed. "The access to XOMA's state-of-the-art BCE technology represents another very important milestone for Affimed and provides new opportunities for the development of Affimed's promising recombinant antibody products. In addition to having the rights to use this technology in our development work, we are particularly pleased to have the benefit of XOMA's expertise in the development of cell lines and production systems for our TandAb therapeutic candidate."
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