SwastiChemEx: MorphoSys buys Lanthio Pharma's lanthipeptide technology

Friday 17 October 2014

MorphoSys buys Lanthio Pharma's lanthipeptide technology

MorphoSys AG, a leading biotechnology companies focusing on fully human antibodies, and Lanthio Pharma, a privately held drug discovery company, announced the acquisition of Lanthio Pharma's lanthipeptide technology, which will be used for drug discovery by MorphoSys.

The acquisition was triggered by MorphoSys exercising an option within an ongoing collaboration and option agreement between the two companies. By exercising the option, MorphoSys takes over the lanthipeptide technology and all related intellectual property. Lanthio Pharma will continue to focus on building its portfolio of selected lanthipeptide drugs and will participate financially in MorphoSys's exploitation of the technology. Financial details were not disclosed.

"Lanthipeptides can become a complementary addition to our therapeutic antibody pipeline and will add more diversity to our drug discovery and development approaches," commented Dr. Marlies Sproll, chief scientific officer of MorphoSys AG. "The decision to acquire this technology was made following a feasibility study to establish high quality and diverse lanthipeptide-based libraries. This brings us closer to adding members of this class of stabilized peptides to our drug portfolio."

As part of its innovation capital initiative, MorphoSys entered a collaboration and option agreement with Lanthio Pharma in November 2012, which included an equity investment as part of the company's Series A financing round.

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