AnaptysBio announced it has signed an agreement with Roche for the development of novel antibody therapeutics

SAN DIEGO, CA, USA | January 11, 2010 | AnaptysBio, Inc., a privately-held therapeutic antibody platform and product company, today announced it has signed an agreement with Roche for the development of novel antibody therapeutics.

Under the terms of the agreement, AnaptysBio will be responsible for generating novel antibodies using its proprietary somatic hypermutation (SHM) platform. Roche will receive a worldwide license to develop and commercialize antibodies optimized by AnaptysBio. In addition to a signing fee paid by Roche, AnaptysBio will be eligible to receive milestone payments and royalties upon product sales.

“AnaptysBio’s proprietary SHM platform provides a powerful new approach for evolving existing antibodies to meet challenging therapeutic design goals such as those specified by Roche,” said Tom Smart, chairman and chief executive officer for AnaptysBio. “We look forward to assisting Roche in building its pipeline of product possibilities as we also apply the platform to generate our own novel product candidates.”

About AnaptysBio

Founded in 2005, AnaptysBio, Inc is a privately-held therapeutic antibody product company and the leader in the use of somatic hypermutation, or SHM, for antibody discovery and optimization. SHM is the body’s natural process for generating potent antibodies to fight disease. The Company’s SHM-Platform™ utilizes the key components of SHM and other techniques to generate antibodies for therapeutic applications through an iterative process of natural evolution and high-throughput selection – a process that has been referred to as “naturalizing” antibodies. This versatile platform can be used both to discover and optimize antibodies directed at specific disease targets and also affinity mature existing antibodies to improve their binding properties. The company has established broad intellectual property around the use of SHM for therapeutic antibody applications, and is currently building a pipeline of novel therapeutic antibody product candidates. For more information, visit www.anaptysbio.com.

SOURCE: AnaptysBio, Inc.