Partnership will develop human monoclonal antibodies

UK-based biotechnology company Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) has entered into an agreement with Chugai Pharmaceutical Co, of Japan, to license CAT's proprietary antibody phage display libraries for the discovery, development and commercialisation of human monoclonal antibodies.

Under the terms of the agreement, CAT will receive license fees from Chugai to utilise the antibody libraries for reagent generation and target validation in support of its drug discovery programmes. Chugai will receive exclusive therapeutic antibody product options and CAT will receive fees, clinical milestones and royalty payments on product sales.

CAT has alliances with a number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies - including Abbott, Amgen, Amrad, Elan, Genzyme, Human Genome Sciences, Pharmacia and Wyeth Research - to discover, develop and commercialise human monoclonal antibody-based products. CAT has also licensed its proprietary human phage antibody libraries to several companies for target validation and drug discovery.

D2E7, the leading CAT-derived antibody, has been submitted for regulatory review by Abbott (responsible for development and marketing) following the completion of Phase III trials. Six other CAT-derived human therapeutic antibodies are at various stages of clinical trials.

Peter Chambre, ceo of CAT, commented: 'We look forward to working with Chugai to accelerate their programmes to validate human disease-associated targets and discover therapeutic human antibody drugs. This new collaboration further expands the number of major companies utilising CAT's technology and capability.'