Affitech Acquires Pharmexa's Diabody ...( OSLO Norway October 28 /- Affitec...)

OSLO, Norway, October 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Affitech AS, the human therapeutic antibody company, today announced that it had acquired the full rights to the innovative diabody technology originally owned by Pharmexa A/S, a leading Danish immunotherapeutic and vaccine company. Also known as bi-specific single chain antibodies, diabodies are recombinant antibody-like proteins whose unique attributes make them attractive candidates for a variety of therapeutic applications. The acquisition follows an exclusive license of the diabody IP that Affitech obtained in 2007 from Pharmexa to carry out certain non-clinical GLP compliant studies, as well as sub-licensing arrangements with third parties.

Affitech CEO Martin Welschof commented:

"This is a key strategic move for Affitech AS, since this diabody technology complements our existing antibody discovery platform perfectly. We are delighted to have this technology under our total ownership, which will benefit both our proprietary programs and our collaborations with pharma and biotech companies. In addition we will continue to seek actively sublicensing arrangements with third parties."

Editors notes

Affitech AS is a privately held human therapeutic antibody discovery and development company with headquarters and R&D facilities in Oslo, Norway and its US subsidiary in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Company's current disease focus is oncology and it utilizes two discrete but unique approaches for the discovery of fully human antibodies - (i) Molecule Based Antibody Discovery, and (ii) Cell Based Antibody Discovery. Molecule Based Antibody Discovery involves proprietary PhagemidScreeN and AffiScreeN(TM) technologies and uses validated targets for discovery purpose. Cell Based Antibody Discovery utilizes CBAS(TM) technology, which is a "reverse-screening" approach for discovering antibodies and their cognate targets from disease-specific cells. CBAS(TM) is also applicable to discovering antibo
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