German pharmaceutical company MorphoSys this week announced an agreement between its recently acquired subsidiary Sloning BioTechnology and Pfizer for the use of Sloning's Slonomics platform for the creation of gene and protein libraries.
The technology will be installed at Pfizer's subsidiary Rinat Neuroscience in South San Francisco. Per the arrangement, Morphosys will receive an upfront payment of an undisclosed amount this year, with the possibility of annual license fees over the patent lifetime of the Slonomics platform.
The Slonomics technology uses a library of double-stranded DNA triplets to construct protein libraries comprising defined mixtures of amino acids at predetermined positions. MorphoSys purchased Sloning in October to optimize production of its therapeutic and diagnostic antibodies (GWDN 10/07/2010).
Also this week, MorphoSys increased its financial guidance for 2010, attributing the increase primarily to "the achievement of revenues from additional commercial activities, resulting from the acquisition of Sloning."
The company now expects 2010 revenues of between €91 million to €94 million ($120 million to $124 million), up from the previous guidance of €89 million to €90 million. It projected operating profits of €13 million to €16 million, up from €7 million to €9 million.