Cambridge Antibody, Wyeth-Ayerst to Collaborate on Drug Discovery, Development

Cambridge Antibody Technology Group (Melbourn, UK) and Wyeth-Ayerst Research, the research division of Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories (Radnor, PA), have entered into an agreement for the broad application of CAT's functional genomics and antibody engineering expertise to the discovery and development of new therapeutics based on targets identified by Wyeth-Ayerst. The agreement comprises a research collaboration, a product collaboration, and a library licence option.

Under the terms of the research collaboration, Wyeth-Ayerst has agreed to pay CAT $4 million per annum in research funding for up to four years, for CAT to apply its proprietary ProAb and ProxiMol functional genomics technologies to potential protein targets based on gene sequence information provided by Wyeth. The funding will also cover other research work. In conjunction with this collaboration, CAT will establish its Continuity bioinformatics software at Wyeth's research facilities in the U.S., to facilitate Wyeth's access to the large amounts of data supplied by CAT. Wyeth-Ayerst has options to develop antibody products derived from the research collaboration; CAT receives license fees, clinical milestone fees and royalties in respect of these products.

Under the product collaboration, Wyeth-Ayerst and CAT will validate and develop product candidates directed at novel proprietary Wyeth targets as well as targets contributed by CAT, with the goal of developing a broad portfolio of human antibody-based drug candidates. Each company has the opportunity to select candidates for further development from this pool. The companies will share equally the target and product validation costs. For those product candidates developed by Wyeth, CAT will receive license fees, clinical milestone fees, and royalties. For those products developed by CAT, Wyeth- Ayerst will receive license fees, clinical milestone fees, and royalties and limited rights to partner the program after Phase II clinical trials.

CAT has also granted Wyeth-Ayerst multi-site options to license CAT's phage library technology with associated product development options.

The total of research funding, potential library licence fees and potential fees and milestones from the product collaboration is approximately $70 million. In addition there are potential fees and milestones on product development options under the research collaboration and library licence option.

Cambridge Antibody Technology Group is a biotechnology company.

For more information: David Chiswell, CEO, Cambridge Antibody Technology Group, The Science Park, Melbourn, Cambridgeshire, SG8 6JJ, UK. Tel: +44 1763 263 233. Fax: +44 1763 263 413. Email: d.chiswell@hccdf.co.uk.