EXTON, Pa., June 27, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Morphotek®, Inc., a subsidiary of Eisai Inc., announced today that it has successfully completed a campaign to collect 8,792 pounds of food from its employees, more than 5 times as much as it collected last year. With approximately 200 employees at Morphotek, this number equates to over 40 pounds of food donated per employee. The food will be donated to local needy families through collaboration with Philabundance, the area's largest food bank and hunger relief organization.
Last year, Morphotek employees collected over 1750 pounds of food; this year's substantial increase reflects both increased awareness and commitment on the part of Morphotek to help address the challenges so many area families currently face in meeting basic necessities in difficult economic times.
Morphotek's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Martin D. Phillips, is also a Member of the Board of Directors of Philabundance. In response to this year's results, Dr. Phillips stated, "This is a very nice demonstration of the commitment of the employees of both Morphotek and Philabundance to the welfare of our neighbors in the Delaware Valley. It exemplifies our human health care credo, which includes not only support of our communities and patients in developing medicines, but also to become personally involved in understanding their needs."
Philabundance reduces hunger and food insecurity in the Delaware Valley by providing food access to people in need in partnership with organizations and individuals. Philabundance provides a full plate of services to close to 500 member agencies in 9 counties, who serve approximately 65,000 people per week at an aggregate cost of 50 cents per meal. There are more than 900,000 people in the Delaware Valley who are at risk for chronic hunger and malnutrition. In 2010, Philabundance distributed 21 million pounds of food. For more information about Philabundance, visit www.philabundance.org, or call 215-339-0900.
About Morphotek
Morphotek®, Inc., a subsidiary of Eisai Inc., is a biopharmaceutical company specializing in the development of protein and antibody products through the use of a novel and proprietary gene evolution technology. The technology has been successfully applied to a broad variety of cell lines and organisms to yield genetically diverse offspring that are suitable for pharmaceutical product development in the areas of antibody therapeutics, protein therapeutics, product manufacturing, drug target discovery, and improved output traits for commercial applications. The company is currently focusing its platform on the development and manufacturing of therapeutic antibodies for the treatment of cancer, inflammation and infectious disease. For more information, please visit www.morphotek.com.
About Eisai Inc.
Eisai Inc. was established in 1995 and is ranked among the top-20 U.S. pharmaceutical companies (based on retail sales). The company began marketing its first product in the United States in 1997 and has rapidly grown to become a fully integrated pharmaceutical business. Eisai's areas of commercial focus include neurology, gastrointestinal disorders and oncology/critical care. The company serves as the U.S. pharmaceutical operation of Eisai Co., Ltd., a research-based human health care (hhc) company that discovers, develops and markets products throughout the world.
Eisai has a global product creation organization that includes U.S.-based R&D facilities in Massachusetts, New Jersey, North Carolina and Pennsylvania as well as manufacturing facilities in Maryland and North Carolina. The company's areas of R&D focus include neuroscience; oncology; vascular, inflammatory and immunological reaction; and antibody-based programs. For more information about Eisai, please visit www.eisai.com/us.
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