New Technology Licensed to Beckman Coulter

Under the terms of a licensing agreement signed by the two parties, Critical Therapeutics (Lexington, MA, USA) has granted certain rights in its patents, patent applications, and other intellectual property relating to its high mobility group box protein 1 (HMGB1) technology to Beckman Coulter (Fullerton, CA, USA).

Beckman Coulter intends to use the HMGB1 technology to develop an immunoassay for the detection and management of inflammatory diseases. In return, Critical Therapeutics will receive a license fee and has the potential of future development milestones and royalties, contingent on the sales of any diagnostic assay resulting from the agreement.

HMBG1 belongs to a class of proteins called pro-inflammatory cytokines and is secreted by the immune system as part of the body's response to trauma and infection. Critical Therapeutics believes HMBG1 may be an effective therapeutic target for acute diseases resulting in multi-organ failure, including sepsis and septic shock. Sepsis alone kills more than a million people worldwide every day, states Beckman Coulter. HMBG1 levels are also linked to other chronic inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis.

"The addition of HMBG1 puts us in a leading position with proprietary markers for the diagnosis and management of sepsis,” noted Mike Whelan, vice president of Beckman Coulter's immunoassay and nucleic acid testing business.

Critical Therapeutics believes the ability to detect and measure levels of HMBG1 in the blood could be a crucial step toward diagnosing disease severity and provide a rationale for selecting patients most likely to benefit from antibody therapy. The company is developing antibodies to HMBG1 in collaboration with MedImmune, Inc. (Gaithersburg, MD, USA). To date, the collaborators have generated several antibodies and are in the process of selecting a candidate for clinical development. According to Critical Therapeutics, HMGB1 is released much later in the inflammatory cascade and persists at elevated levels for a longer period of time.

"This license agreement is a key step forward for our HMBG1 program,” commented Paul Rubin, M.D., president and CEO of Critical Therapeutics. "We believe it validates our intellectual property and the research conducted by company co-founder Kevin Tracey and his colleagues in identifying the expression of HMGB1.”





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Beckman Coulter
Critical Therapeutics