MorphoSys's Partner Heptares Initiates Proprietary Therapeutic Antibody Program against a GPCR Target - Seite 2

In February 2013, MorphoSys and Heptares Therapeutics, the clinical-stage GPCR structure-guided drug discovery and development company, announced an agreement to discover novel antibody therapeutics targeting G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Under the terms of the agreement, Heptares generates stabilized receptors (StaR®) for a set of GPCR disease targets proposed by MorphoSys. MorphoSys then utilizes its proprietary Ylanthia® library for the generation and further development of specific and functionally active anti-GPCR antibodies. The agreement also includes the option, now exercised by Heptares, to develop and commercialize a therapeutic antibody created by MorphoSys against a GPCR target selected by Heptares.

GPCRs are membrane proteins involved in a broad range of biological processes and diseases, including inflammatory disease, neuroscience indications, metabolic diseases and cancer. They comprise the single largest class of targets for pharmaceuticals currently on the market. Technical challenges, however, have meant that GPCRs have been largely intractable to therapeutic antibody development and to date only one GPCR-targeting antibody has been approved (for adult T-cell lymphoma), which reflects the central technical challenge of accessing reliable high-quality GPCR antigen.
The Heptares StaR® technology provides a breakthrough solution to this challenge, enabling the purification of properly folded and functional protein removed from the cell membrane. StaR proteins also preserve epitopes from the desired pharmacological state (active or inactive) of the GPCR, thereby enabling generation of panels of functional antibodies targeting the disease-relevant form of the receptor.

MorphoSys's Ylanthia® antibody library comprises more than 100 billion distinct, fully human antibodies, which makes it the industry's largest known antibody Fab library. Ylanthia's genetic composition translates into unprecedented structural diversity of the antibodies and offers optimized developability features. The library's diversity is expected to result in antibodies against previously inaccessible target molecules and to provide unique epitope coverage.

About MorphoSys:
MorphoSys developed HuCAL, the most successful antibody library technology in the pharmaceutical industry. By successfully applying this and other patented technologies, MorphoSys has become a leader in the field of therapeutic antibodies, one of the fastest-growing drug classes in human healthcare.