Distribution of company announcements to the professional platforms, finance portals and syndication of important corporate news to a wide variety of news aggregators and financial news systems.
MorphoSys AG (MUC:MOR) MorphoSys AG (FSE: MOR; Prime Standard Segment, TecDAX) announced today that Shionogi & Co., Ltd., Osaka, Japan, has elected to extend its current license agreement covering the use of MorphoSys's HuCAL technology in drug discovery, for three additional years. Under the terms of the agreement, Shionogi will continue to have the right to use MorphoSys's proprietary antibody library HuCAL GOLD for research purposes at one of its research sites. MorphoSys will receive annual user fees from Shionogi for access to the HuCAL technology. Further financial details were not disclosed.
"We are very pleased with Shionogi's decision to continue using our HuCAL GOLD technology as a research tool. Today's news underscores our ongoing ability to pursue a broad range of R&D-based alliances with leading pharmaceutical companies worldwide," commented Dr. Simon Moroney, Chief Executive Officer of MorphoSys.
MorphoSys and Shionogi signed a three-year license agreement on the use of MorphoSys's HuCAL technology in September 2005. Under the terms of the agreement, MorphoSys granted Shionogi access to its HuCAL GOLD antibody library for research applications in Shionogi's drug discovery programs.
For further information please contact: Dr. Claudia Gutjahr-Löser, Head of Corporate Communications & Investor Relations, Tel: +49 (0) 89 / 899 27-122, gutjahr-loeser@morphosys.com or Mario Brkulj, Manager Corporate Communications & Investor Relations, Tel: +49 (0) 89 / 899 27-454, brkulj@morphosys.com
About MorphoSys: MorphoSys is a publicly traded biotechnology company focused on the generation of fully human antibodies as a means to discover and develop innovative antibody-based drugs against life-threatening diseases. MorphoSys's goal is to establish HuCAL as the technology of choice for antibody generation in research, diagnostics and therapeutic applications. The Company currently has therapeutic and research alliances with the majority of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies including Boehringer Ingelheim, Centocor/Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Pfizer and Roche. Within these partnerships, more than 50 therapeutic antibody programs are ongoing in which MorphoSys participates through exclusive license and milestones payments as well as royalties on any end products. Additionally, MorphoSys is active in the antibody research market through its AbD Serotec business unit. The business unit has operations in Germany (Munich), the U.S. (Raleigh, NC) and U.K. (Oxford). For further information please visit http://www.morphosys.com/
HuCAL and HuCAL GOLD are registered trademarks of MorphoSys AG
This communication contains certain forward-looking statements concerning the MorphoSys group of companies. The forward-looking statements contained herein represent the judgment of MorphoSys as of the date of this release and involve risks and uncertainties. Should actual conditions differ from the Company's assumptions, actual results and actions may differ from those anticipated. MorphoSys does not intend to update any of these forward-looking statements as far as the wording of the relevant press release is concerned.
