This license agreement allows MorphoSys to use the PER.C6 cell line in the production of clinical grade material for the development of its proprietary therapeutic antibody program MOR103. MOR103 is a fully human HuCAL antibody, developed in the area of inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis. Financial details were not disclosed.
Additionally, MorphoSys has signed a biopharmaceutical manufacturing agreement with DSM Biologics to produce the clinical grade material in its FDA-approved facilities in Groningen, the Netherlands.
“Today’s news shows that MorphoSys’s MOR103 program is on track towards the next development stage – the filing of an IND in the second half of 2007,” commented Dr Marlies Sproll, chief scientific officer of MorphoSys. “This collaboration brings together a fully human antibody to treat inflammatory diseases with production capabilities in the same fully-human environment.”