Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research to transfer cancer gene to German-Brazilian Start-up

Ulm, Sao Paulo and London December 2, 2002.

ANTARUS LifeScience, a start-up company launched by an international team of scientists and entrepreneurs in Ulm, Sao Paulo and London, announced today that it has achieved a strategic agreement with the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research (LICR) giving the company the rights to produce and commercialise high-affinity polyclonal antibodies against target sequences selected by the Institute from its ongoing Human Cancer Genome Project. The LICR has developed a high accuracy proprietary technology - known as ORESTES - for selecting genes that are preferentially expressed in certain forms of cancer, and has passed to the company a number of sequences in an initial lot. The company has started to produce high-affinity antibodies against these targets. The antibodies will be available to the world-wide cancer research community within 6 months. The goal of the company is to have as full a set of antibodies as possible against proteins associated with the main cancer forms.

“Our agreement with the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research represents a major break-through for our young company. The agreement is a demonstration of confidence by a major research institution world-wide toward our business strategy” said Mr. Brian Wilkinson the President and CEO of ANTARUS in London.

Prof. Dr. Ricardo Brentani, Director of the Ludwig Institute of Cancer Research, Sao Paulo Branch, and a key figure in the Human Cancer Genome Programme comments “the antibodies now being produced by this German-Brazilian Joint Venture will make a great contribution to our research, allowing us to localise the expression of certain targets in our tissues arrays. I am confident that our knowledge of cancer biology will increase as a result of this collaboration”.

At the Biotechnology Centre in Ulm, where an Antibody Production Facility has been built, Dr. Flavio Ortigao and his team are delighted – “we believe this agreement is the basis for a very solid business. By this agreement a great amount of knowledge is flowing into our pipelines.” For the transformation of this knowledge into products a team of top chemists, informaticians and molecular biologists is being assembled, creating new high-tech job opportunities in South West Germany.

The LICR is a not-for-profit global research organisation which addresses the complex nature of cancer through a range of scientific disciplines. More than 900 scientists and support staff conduct basic and clinical research in the Institute’s 10 branches around the world, focusing on genetics, tumour immunology, cell biology, biochemistry and signalling (http://www.ludwig.org).

ANTARUS LifeScience GmbH is an innovative company formed by an international team of entrepreneurs who are focused on the molecular design, production, quality assurance, marketing and sales of high-affinity antisera against all human cancer associated proteins. Key to the company‘s success is a patent pending technology for production of high-affinity antibodies. The company has just moved to its new facilities at the Biotechnology Centre in the City of Ulm.




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