Medarex and Avalon in antibody agreement

Medarex and Avalon Pharmaceuticals have entered into an agreement under which the two companies will collaborate on the planned development of antibody products.

Under the agreement, the two companies expect to share equally the cost and responsibility of the development of antibody products. In addition, the two companies plan to jointly commercialise any antibody products resulting from this collaboration.

Using its industrialised cytogenetics and gene-expression platforms, Avalon has identified targets representing what it believes are the key genes that are over-expressed and amplified in cancers. Medarex plans to use its UltiMAb Human Antibody Development System to generate antibodies to the identified disease targets. Avalon and Medarex intend to develop these antibodies for therapeutic intervention.

'Avalon is pleased to be partnering with Medarex, a proven leader in the field of monoclonal antibody therapeutics,' said Ken Carter, president and ceo of Avalon Pharmaceuticals.

'Our systematic approach to target discovery has produced a large pipeline of novel oncology targets, and we believe that this collaboration with Medarex will accelerate the development of these targets into antibody-based oncology therapeutics.'

'We look forward to pairing Avalon's target identification technology with our UltiMAb system for the generation of novel therapeutic antibodies,' said Donald L. Drakeman, president and ceo of Medarex.