AnaptysBio Announces Strategic Antibody Discovery Partnership With Celgene Corporation

SAN DIEGO, April 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- AnaptysBio, Inc., a privately-held therapeutic antibody company, today announced a strategic partnership with Celgene Corporation to develop novel antibodies against multiple therapeutic targets. 

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Under this partnership, AnaptysBio is responsible for generating novel therapeutic antibodies to oncology and inflammation-related targets using its proprietary SHM-XEL platform.  Celgene will receive worldwide rights to develop and commercialize antibodies discovered by AnaptysBio under the terms of the partnership.  In addition to an upfront payment, AnaptysBio is due to receive preclinical and clinical milestone payments from Celgene, as well as royalties upon sales of each product derived from the partnership.

"AnaptysBio is uniquely positioned with a state-of-the-art antibody platform and an experienced antibody development team," said Hamza Suria, AnaptysBio's president and chief executive officer. "We look forward to advancing novel antibody therapeutics with Celgene, in parallel with our internal pipeline programs."

About AnaptysBio
Founded in 2005, AnaptysBio, Inc. is a privately-held company focused on the generation of antibody therapeutics, and the leader in the use of somatic hypermutation (SHM) for antibody discovery and optimization. SHM is the body's natural process for generating potent antibodies.  AnaptysBio's proprietary SHM-XEL platform, which couples fully human antibody libraries with in vitro somatic hypermutation (SHM) in mammalian cells to generate high affinity lead candidates, replicates key features of the human immune system and overcomes limitations of prior antibody technologies.  By harnessing the natural mechanism of antibody maturation under controlled conditions, SHM-XEL allows for the selection of optimal antibody properties such as high affinity, functionality, cross-reactivity and epitope diversity.   AnaptysBio has established broad intellectual property around the use of SHM and is currently building a pipeline of novel therapeutic antibody product candidates. Major investors in AnaptysBio include founding investor Avalon Ventures, as well as Alloy Ventures, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, and Novo A/S. For more information, visit www.anaptysbio.com.

Contacts:
           Julie Rathbun
           [email protected]
           206-769-9219

SOURCE AnaptysBio, Inc.