MARTINSRIED, Germany, Sept. 23, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- MorphoSys AG (Frankfurt:MOR) (Prime Standard Segment:TecDAX) today announced a cross license agreement with Eli Lilly and Company on the use of certain recombinant protein technologies. Under the agreement, MorphoSys receives a license under the Kauffman patent estate to generate and screen certain recombinant peptide and protein libraries and to commercialize any resulting products. Financial terms were not disclosed. The agreement also provides Lilly access to the MorphoSys HuCAL GOLD(r) technology for Lilly's internal research and development programs. For any therapeutic antibodies Lilly develops under the agreement, it will pay MorphoSys exclusive licensing fees, success fees, milestone payments and royalties on end products. This agreement is part of a settlement to resolve patent litigation initiated by Applied Molecular Evolution (AME), a wholly owned subsidiary of Lilly, involving several U.S. patents of the Kauffman patent family.
The settlement agreement covers MorphoSys' and its partners' past, present and future use and commercialisation of all versions of its HuCAL(r) libraries, as well as its TRIM technology. The agreement also gives Lilly access under agreed terms to Antibodies by Design, MorphoSys's business unit focusing on development of custom monoclonal antibodies for non-therapeutic purposes.
"We are very pleased to announce today's cross licensing agreement, which gives us greater flexibility in planning future generations of our proprietary HuCAL(r) antibody libraries," commented Dr. Simon Moroney, Chief Executive Officer of MorphoSys AG. "We welcome Lilly's decision to join our stable of partners and look forward to working with them in a long-term partnership to develop innovative HuCAL(r) based antibody drugs."
About MorphoSys:
MorphoSys develops and applies innovative technologies for the production of synthetic antibodies which accelerate drug discovery and target characterization. Founded in 1992, the Company's proprietary Human Combinatorial Antibody Library (HuCAL(r)) technology is used by researchers worldwide for human antibody generation. The Company currently has licensing agreements and/or research collaborations with Bayer (Berkeley, California/USA), Boehringer Ingelheim (Ingelheim, Germany), Bristol-Myers Squibb (New Jersey/USA), Centocor Inc. (Malvern, Pennsylvania/USA), GPC Biotech AG (Munich/Germany), Hoffmann-La Roche AG (Basel/Switzerland), ImmunoGen Inc. (Cambridge, Massachusetts/USA), Novartis AG (Basel, Switzerland), Pfizer Inc. (Delaware/USA), ProChon Biotech Ltd. (Rehovot/Israel), Schering AG (Berlin/Germany), Shionogi & Co., Ltd. (Japan), and Xoma Ltd. (Berkeley, California/USA). Additionally, MorphoSys is active in the antibody research market through its Antibodies by Design business unit. Antibodies by Design was founded in 2003 for the purpose of exploiting the MorphoSys non-therapeutic antibody markets. MorphoSys' activities in the research antibody segment were significantly strengthened through the acquisition of the U.K. and U.S.-based Biogenesis Group in January 2005. For further information please visit the corporate website at: http://www.morphosys.com/.
Statements included in this press release which are not historical in nature are intended to be, and are hereby identified as, "forward-looking statements" for purposes of the safe harbour provided by Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may be identified by words including "anticipates", "believes", "intends", "estimates", "expects" and similar expressions. The company cautions readers that forward-looking statements, including without limitation those relating to the company's future operations and business prospects, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements. Factors that may affect future operations and business prospects include, but are not limited to, clinical and scientific results and developments concerning corporate collaborations and the company's proprietary rights and other factors described in the prospectus relating to the company's recent public offering.