Research Partners Seek Antibodies for Cancer Therapy

The discovery, development, and commercialization of novel therapeutic antibodies for the treatment of cancer are the objectives of new strategic research collaboration.

Oxford Genome Sciences (Oxford, UK) and Amgen (Thousand Oaks, CA, USA) plan to generate fully human antibodies using Amgen's proprietary XenoMouse technology. These antibodies will be raised against the novel druggable targets that Oxford Genome Sciences has identified through its Oxford Genome Anatomy Project (OGAP) database.

OGAP maintains a database comprising what has been described as the world's largest proprietary collection of proteins. It integrates genomic, proteomics, and clinical information derived from blood and tissue studies for a large number of diseases from 50 different human tissues and representing 60 diseases. It contains over one million peptide sequences, mapped to approximately 15,000 genes, and over eight million SNPs and haplotypes. The OGAP oncology section contains proteomic data on 5,000 cancer membrane proteins combined with their genomic and clinical information derived from human blood and cancer tissue studies.

Dr Christian Rohlff, CEO of Oxford Genome Sciences said, "I am very happy to be collaborating with Amgen in our effort to discover and develop novel fully human antibodies for the treatment of cancer. I am confident that by using our complementary expertise we will be able to develop a promising and valuable pipeline of antibodies.”

Dr. Dave Lacey, head of research at Amgen, said, "We are pleased to enter into this collaboration that takes advantage of Amgen's expertise in monoclonal antibody technology and the database that Oxford Genome Sciences has established.”


Related Links:
Oxford Genome Sciences
Amgen