The milestone payment is related to the clinical trial application (CTA/IND) and projected initiation of a Phase 1 clinical trial.
The HuCAL-derived, fully human antibody will be developed in the therapeutic area of cancer, MorphoSys said.
MorphoSys’s clinical pipeline comprises twelve programs in Phase I and nine in Phase II development including the company’s proprietary programs MOR103 and MOR208.
MorphoSys chief scientific officer Marlies Sproll said the collaboration with Novartis has resulted in six clinical programs to date, with two being evaluated in Phase I and four in Phase II.