MARTINSRIED, Germany, Jan. 29, 2009 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MorphoSys AG (FSE: MOR) (Prime Standard Segment) announced today the appointment of a new Head of its AbD Serotec business for research and diagnostic antibodies. Dieter Feger joins MorphoSys from Abbott Diagnostics, Illinois, a global leader in in vitro diagnostics. For the last four years, he held the position of Marketing Director - Global Marketing, most recently with responsibility for Infectious Diseases, Abbott Diagnostics' biggest reagent franchise. Prior to that, he spent 18 years with Abbott in Europe, in a variety of roles including sales, product management, operational management and marketing before moving to the U.S. He replaces Dieter Lingelbach who has left MorphoSys to pursue new opportunities.
"I am delighted to welcome Dieter Feger to the management team of MorphoSys. He brings deep experience from his work at Abbott Diagnostics, one of the industry's leading companies, that will assist AbD Serotec to seek new growth opportunities and to expand its footprint in the diagnostics industry," commented Dr. Simon Moroney, Chief Executive Officer of MorphoSys AG. "I would like to thank Dieter Lingelbach for his invaluable contribution to establishing AbD Serotec as a leading supplier of research antibodies and wish him well in the future."
MorphoSys began offering custom antibody services to the research and diagnostic markets in 2003. Two successful acquisitions of US and UK-based antibody suppliers with strong catalog and industrial antibody production businesses have significantly strengthened and broadened MorphoSys's position in the research antibody market. Today, MorphoSys's AbD Serotec unit is among the top 20 antibody suppliers worldwide.
"I'm looking forward to working with the team of AbD Serotec in Germany, the UK and the US to increase the unit's market share in the research antibody markets and to seek new opportunities in the diagnostics industry," commented Dieter Feger, Head of AbD Serotec and Senior Vice President. "MorphoSys's HuCAL technology is a unique tool to generate novel research reagents and diagnostics which has already led to a number of first-of-a-kind products."
MorphoSys will publish its full year 2008 results and financial guidance for 2009 at its year-end 2008 Results Press Conference and Analyst Meeting in Frankfurt, Germany on February 26, 2009. Invitations for the conference in Frankfurt and the webcast will be sent out in due course.
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 on going 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 visithttp://www.morphosys.com/
HuCAL(r), HuCAL GOLD(r), HuCAL PLATINUM(r) and RapMAT(r) 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.