NEW YORK, Dec. 4 – Affitech of Oslo and Axaron Bioscience of Heidelberg, Germany, said Tuesday that they had agreed to jointly develop and sel antibody drugs for neurological disorders.
Axaron, formerly known as BASF-Lynx Bioscience, will use its transcription profiling technologies to identify targets that Affitech will then use in the development of antibodies. Both companies will support the effort to bring the antibodies through preclinical and clinical trials.
Affitech will have ownership of the antibodies, while Axaron, which will contribute some of the development costs, could be entitled to up to two-thirds of the profits from any products that are commercialized.
The companies did not offer any specifics about the financial terms of the agreement.
Ole Marvik, CEO of Affitech, called the alliance “an excellent exsample of technical and commercial synergies.”
Established in 1997, Affitech generates human antibodies using an in vitro selection process.
Axaron grew out of a joint venture between German chemicals giant BASF and Lynx Therapeutics, an American maker of DNA profiling technologies.
The company's offerings are based on technologies developed in house as well as those licensed from Lynx Therapeutics, including Megaclone, a system that uses microbeads to sort millions of DNA molecules according to sequence, and Massively Parallel Signature Sequencing technology, which can identify genes by a 16 to 20 base signature sequence.