Morphosys in $1 billion antibody deal

Yet another antibody specialist fell into the arms of big pharma when Morphosys GmbH sealed one of the biggest pharma/accords on record agreeing an $1 billion tie-up with Novartis AG.

The Munich-based company is to become Novartis's main technology collaborator in the area of antibody discovery and development, receiving over $600 million during the ten year lifetime of the agreement, plus milestones, profit sharing and/or royalty payments based on products emerging from the collaboration

MorphoSys has retained certain co-development and marketing rights for selected programmes, and said the financial strength provided by the agreement will enable it to expand in house drug development activities

The deal is a transforming one for Morphosys, which to date has relied on fee-for-service discovery deals to bolster the corporate coffers.

Novartis will make a major long-term commitment to Morphosys’s antibody generation platform technology HuCAL, using it in its own research centres. The deal is an extension to an existing collaboration.

Simon Moroney, CEO of Morphosys said, “The first antibody from our collaboration with Novartis entered the clinic three years after signature.  The proven success of our relationship and demonstrated commitment of the collaborator was a key factor in our decision to enter this substantially expanded new deal.”

Morphosys and Novartis started working together in 2004 in a collaboration that has resulted to date in multiple active therapeutic antibody programmes across various diseases.