MorphoSys acquires Sloning BioTechnology
This article was originally published in Scrip
MorphoSys, the antibody technology company, is using some of its cash pile (approximately €150 milion as of June 2010) to improve the R&D productivity of its platform. MorphoSys is acquiring another Munich-based firm, Sloning BioTechnology, for €19 million cash to access its Slonomics technology which it says offers precise and rapid synthesis of protein libraries which should enable it to cut the time needed to generate an antibody drug candidate by a third.
"Slonomics will bring some key benefits:" MorphoSys CEO Dr Simon Moroney told Scrip. "First, it will significantly accelerate antibody optimization. Specifically, we expect to shorten the time needed to generate therapeutic lead candidates by up to one third. Second, Slonomics will help us make antibodies that are not accessible with other technologies. We expect to increase success probabilities from project start to IND up to one in two from somewhere between one in four and one in three."
Until now, MorphoSys has relied on optimising its antibodies using its TRIM (trinucleotide mutagenesis) technology which sequentially replaces the antibody-binding regions with pre-assembled modular gene cassettes, using standard chemical syntheses. The Sloning approach uses an enzymatic approach to DNA synthesis which makes the process much faster and cheaper. "The Sloning technology offers greater freedom in library design and rapid optimization cycles. It enables us to optimise all regions of the antibody simultaneously," noted MorphoSys CSO Dr Marlies Sproll.
Indeed, while the precision of which amino acids appear in which positions is about the same for both technologies, Slonomics offers advantages over TRIM in the ability to construct libraries using robotics, greater flexibility in design and optimisations, usage in non-HuCAL antibodies and time to lead generation. "This technology has been proven to deliver superior products for a range of applications. We have tested it thoroughly in-house. This acquisition takes us a long way forward technologically," added Dr Moroney.
MorphoSys intends to integrate Sloning taking on all 27 staff and will look at the non-pharmaceutical applications of Slonomics, such as non-antibody protein libraries and industrial enzymes, which account for about 20% of revenues, and determine its strategic options.