Pfizer Licenses Transgenic Mice Tech to Make Human MAbs

25-Jul-2013 - Last updated on 26-Jul-2013 at 10:09 GMT

Related tags Monoclonal antibodies Pfizer

Harbour Antibodies has received a double boost this week raising $3.3m (€2.5m) for its transgenic H2L2 mice technology and adding Pfizer to its list of clients.

The company licenses its transgenic mice to biopharma firms that use them to generate human antibody-based biologics and Pfizer has become the third to put its name on Harbour's books, following Eli Lilly and ShangPharma.

Pfizer's Dean Mastrojohn told Biopharma-Reporter.com that: “The agreement with Harbour Antibodies gives Pfizer the ability to potentially produce human monoclonal antibodies [MAbs],” but declined to reveal the specifc therapetuic focus of the research.

“Monoclonal antibodies are already an important part of our pipeline and will continue to be,” he said. “Pfizer continues to innovate technologies to design and develop the next-generation of antibody therapies.”

According to Harbour’s co-founder and CSO, Dr. Frank Grosveld, “there is a need for new transgenic mouse platforms to meet the continuing demand for human antibody therapies,” and the firm's H2L2 mice aid pharma by accelerating and lowering costs of drug discovery and development.

Mouse in-House?

The $3.3m financing, led by Atlas Venture, allows Harbour to continue R&D and commercialisation of its transgenic mouse platform, the firm said in a statement that also announced the appointment of BJ Bormann as CEO.

MAbs are “a critical component in advancing the treatment of cancer,” said Bormann, and “until now, the capabilities provided by human antibody transgenic mice have been restricted to only a few large pharmaceutical companies.”

Bristol-Myers Squibb acquired Medarex and its UltiMAb Human Antibody Development System in 2009 for $2.1bn, and Amgen bought Abgenix in 2005 for $2.2bn, including the proprietary fully human MAb technology, XenoMouse.

The Pfizer, Shangpharma (2012) and Lilly (2011) deals with Harbour point to a move away from in-house platforms, as do recent partnerships from Open Monoclonal Technology (OMT) who has licensed out its OmniRat platform to two contract research organisations - WuXi and GenScript - in the last year.

The OmniRat technology uses rats instead of mice and, according to OMT, is a superior method of antibody production. “The mouse can be expensive to license and pre-existing intellectual property can restrict development options.”