Morphotek Expands Oncology Pipeline With Product Candidate From the National Cancer Institute (NCI)

EXTON, Pa., Jan. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Morphotek(R) Inc. announced today thatit has signed an exclusive, worldwide patent license agreement giving it theright to develop and commercialize an antibody for the diagnosis and treatmentof mesothelin-expressing cancers. The license was granted by the PublicHealth Service (PHS) and the NCI. This agreement is a result of an ongoingresearch collaboration where Morphotek is applying its proprietary antibodytechnologies to develop and optimize antibodies to cancer-associated proteinsidentified by researchers at the NCI. One of these antibodies "MORAb-009" isbeing developed by Morphotek for the treatment of pancreatic, ovarian and lungcancers and mesothelioma. "This agreement accelerates the evolution of Morphotek's business modelfrom a service-based enterprise to a biopharmaceutical development company.MORAb-009 is one of six therapeutic antibodies we are currently developing.We expect to file the Investigational New Drug Application for this product inearly 2006 which will contribute to our corporate goal of leveraging ourantibody technologies to file two INDs per year," said Dr. Nicholas C.Nicolaides, President and Chief Executive Officer of Morphotek. "The treatment of pancreatic cancer and other mesothelin-expressingmalignancies is an unmet medical need," said Dr. Martin Phillips, Senior VicePresident of Clinical Development. "We believe the mechanism of action and thetarget makes MORAb-009 an outstanding addition to our pipeline of antibodiesfor cancer, infectious and inflammatory diseases. We look forward tocommencing clinical studies early in 2006." The first therapeutic indication for investigation will be for thetreatment of patients with pancreatic cancer. According to preliminarynumbers presented by the American Cancer Society, 32,180 Americans werediagnosed with and 31,800 died of pancreatic cancer in 2005, making this thefourth-leading cause of cancer death overall. A significant opportunityexists for compounds that can help prolong the survival of patients withpancreatic cancer as well as compounds that offer additional clinical benefitssuch as a lack of side effects and those that can improve quality of life.Ovarian and lung cancers and mesothelioma will be also evaluated for safetyand therapeutic efficacy during the MORAb-009 development program. Morphotek, Inc. is a biotechnology company focused on the generation ofproprietary proteins for product discovery and development. The Company has avalidated and patented platform technology called morphogenics that rapidlyenhances the natural process of genetic evolution within a targeted host toyield variants with novel, commercially important output traits. Morphotekmarkets an antibody development platform called Human MORPHODOMA(R) thatemploys morphogenics to yield fully human, high-affinity monoclonal antibodies(MAbs) from high-titer hybridoma cells. The platform is also employed as adiscovery tool to generate libraries of hybridomas yielding fully human MAbsfor the diagnosis and treatment of diseases in humans. Both platforms bypassthe burdensome royalty stacking issues associated with recombinant antibodytechnologies. Internally, Morphotek employs its technologies to develop itsoptimized therapeutic antibody pipeline for the treatment of cancer,inflammatory and infectious diseases. For further information visithttp://www.morphotek.com. Contact: Kimberly Ilgenfritz Executive Director, Business Development & Marketing 610-423-6147 info@morphotek.com