Oxford BioTherapeutics Licenses BioWa's POTELLIGENT® Technology for the Research and Development of its Therapeutic Antibodies in Cancer

PRINCETON, N.J., and OXFORD, England, April 6, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- BioWa, Inc. (BioWa) and Oxford BioTherapeutics Ltd (OBT) today announced that they have entered into a license agreement to provide OBT with access to BioWa's patented POTELLIGENT® Technology platform for the development of antibody dependent cellular cytotoxicity (ADCC) enhanced antibodies.  

OBT intends to use POTELLIGENT® Technology to develop, manufacture and commercialize selected ADCC programs from its pipeline of preclinical antibodies for oncology which it has built based upon novel targets identified using its OGAP® proteomic database.

In return for the license, OBT will pay to BioWa undisclosed license fees, development and commercialization milestones and royalties on sales of any products that it commercializes.

"We are delighted to have access to BioWa's POTELLIGENT® Technology as part of our technology access portfolio as we build a pipeline of first-in-class therapeutic antibodies for cancer," said Christian Rohlff, CEO of OBT.  "Our strategy is to combine novel proprietary oncology targets with world-leading antibody technologies, such as POTELLIGENT® Technology, to develop highly efficacious new cancer drugs for patients with few treatment options."  

"The OBT cancer specific antibody portfolio has matured to an advanced stage where coupling to BioWa's POTELLIGENT® Technology enhances already promising anticancer agents and further enables our clinical development pipeline," commented OBT's Senior Vice President of Oncology, Jon Terrett.

"We are excited to expand our set of small company arrangements with OBT. In large part, our decision to partner with OBT was driven by our interest in novel therapeutic antibody targets identified through the OGAP® proteomic database," said Yasunori Yamaguchi, President and CEO of BioWa.

About POTELLIGENT® Technology

POTELLIGENT® Technology improves potency and efficacy of antibody therapeutics, by enhancing ADCC, one of the major mechanisms of action for antibody therapeutics.  POTELLIGENT® Technology involves the reduction of the amount of fucose in the carbohydrate structure of an antibody using a proprietary fucosyltransferase-knockout CHO cell line as a production cell.  Research shows that POTELLIGENT® Technology dramatically enhances ADCC activity of an antibody in vitro, and significantly increases potency and efficacy of the antibody in vivo.  A number of POTELLIGENT® antibodies are being investigated in human clinical trials.

About BioWa

BioWa is a wholly owned subsidiary of Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co., Ltd., Japan's leading pharmaceutical and largest biotech company, and is the exclusive worldwide licensor of the AccretaMab® platform.  The AccretaMab® platform consists of POTELLIGENT® and COMPLEGENT® Technologies, creating a superior antibody molecule with enhanced ADCC and CDC activities.  BioWa is offering POTELLIGENT® and COMPLEGENT® Technologies to partners under a license to maximize the value of these technologies.  Together with Kyowa Hakko Kirin, BioWa is committed to promote ADCC/CDC enhanced monoclonal antibody-based therapeutics to fight cancer and other life-threatening and debilitating diseases.  For more information about BioWa, visit its web site at http://www.biowa.com.

POTELLIGENT®, COMPLEGENT®, and AccretaMab® are the trademarks of Kyowa Hakko Kirin Co., Ltd.  All rights are reserved.  

About Oxford BioTherapeutics

Oxford BioTherapeutics (OBT) is focused on the development of targeted medicines for oncology.  OBT's strategy is to develop innovative antibody-based cancer drugs, with integrated diagnostics, against novel targets that it has discovered in its unique OGAP® proteomic database.  

OBT, through its alliances with the world leaders in antibody development, has been able to use its unique position to convert its novel targets into a highly attractive pipeline of therapeutic antibodies.  OBT's pipeline will deliver innovative and cost-effective medicines to fulfill major unmet patient needs in the field of cancer.  

OBT, a privately held company, was formed in 2004 and is based near Oxford, UK.

For further information, please see www.OxfordBioTherapeutics.com or www.oxbt.co.uk  

About OGAP®

The Oxford Genome Anatomy Project (OGAP®) database represents the world's largest proprietary collection of disease-associated proteins. OGAP® oncology contains proteomic data on 5,000 cancer membrane proteins combined with their genomic and clinical information derived from human blood and cancer tissue studies. OGAP® contains proprietary target information on three quarters of the entire human proteome. Over one million human protein fragments have been sequenced in OGAP in 50 different human tissues representing 60 diseases have been mapped to approximately 15,000 different genes and over eight million SNPs and haplotypes.

OGAP® is a registered trade mark of Oxford BioTherapeutics Ltd.

SOURCE BioWa, Inc.