London Press Service
Informs
BIOTECH RESEARCH THRIVES IN THE UK
A leading producer of antibodies for biotech drug research and manufacturing has opened a new United Kingdom headquarters in Oxford.
MorphoSys generates and designs therapeutic antibodies – that is: antibodies intended to treat specific disease mechanisms, as well as antibodies to be used in research.
The German company generates therapeutic antibodies and then hands them over for pre-clinical or clinical development to pharma or biotech company clients that currently include Roche and Pfizer.
AbD Serotec is the company’s business unit for producing antibodies for research purposes and the new site in Oxford, southern England, will serve the needs of the region’s cluster of academic research and biotech companies.
Strong growth in sales has spurred the company to bring together all its UK operations at a single site in Oxford.
“The Oxford region provides us with a strong infrastructure and a high concentration of excellent academic researchers and innovative biotechnology companies – both potential customers for our technology,” said Dr. Simon Moroney, chief executive of MorphoSys.
“Since the UK represents one of the top three markets for our research antibody segment operating under the AbD Serotec brand, a strong presence in this region will remain a key element of our future strategy.”
Attending the opening of the site, the UK Minister of State for Science & Innovation, Malcolm Wicks, commented: “The UK has a deserved reputation for excellence in biotechnology. This new facility demonstrates further that the UK is an attractive location for European businesses to invest.
“I welcome this investment by the MorphoSys Group, which links two of Europe’s most successful biotech clusters, and wish the company well for its plans to grow its business in the UK and abroad.”
MorphoSys has its headquarters in Frankfurt, a biotech cluster of similar size to Oxford.
The UK bioscience and healthcare sector is globally recognised as being world class, with particular specialisms in medical devices, pharmaceuticals, biopharmaceuticals and the exploitation of bioscience by industry.
The UK is also the most popular location in Europe for investment in pharmaceutical and biotechnology R&D, according to a European Commission report in 2006.
Meanwhile, AstraZeneca has bought London-based Arrow Therapeutics for 150 million dollars (76 million pounds sterling), adding to a long list of recent acquisitions and in-licensing deals, it was reported by industry magazine Pharmafocus.
Clinical development: the UK remains a leading destination for bio-medical research.
Here, a technical assistant at MorphoSys, a German company that has set up a UK headquarters near Oxford, prepares an assay for analysis of antibodies.
The Anglo-Swedish pharma giant is one of the industry’s most active in the in-licensing and acquisition field at the moment, seeking to restock its pipeline. The company says Arrow’s specialist focus on anti-infectives will complement its existing development programme in the field that it has identified as a core therapy area.
Arrow Therapeutics is currently investigating several and different promising approaches towards new medicines to treat the hepatitis C virus (HCV) and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).
This includes two anti-HCV compounds that both target the novel NS5a protein, including A-831 in phase one. Arrow’s most advanced compound is RSV604, currently in phase-two clinical development and partnered with Novartis. RSV604 is a first-in-class, small molecule, oral anti-RSV compound.
In May 2006, AstraZeneca bought another UK-based biotech company, Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT), but plans to allow biotech development to remain as independent as possible. The expectation is that CAT can maintain its lean and innovative biotech culture, and there are similar plans for Arrow Therapeutics within AstraZeneca.
Jan Lundberg, head of discovery at AstraZeneca, said: “We intend to utilise the best of both organisations with an innovation-led culture paramount. We will look to preserve the entrepreneurial culture of Arrow Therapeutics, while at the same time, gaining the benefits available to us from applying the breadth and depth of AstraZeneca’s global capabilities.”
Arrow currently has 57 employees at its facility in London and AstraZeneca said the site would become a hub for anti-viral discovery activities.
The UK has many examples of world-class bio-medical research. In Scotland, the University of Dundee hosts the Dundee Kinase Consortium that was established by six companies (AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co Inc, Merck KGaA and Pfizer) to support the university’s Division of Transduction Therapies.
Professor Sir Philip Cohen, director of the Medical Research Council’s Protein Phosphorylation Unit, has played a key role in establishing this 15 million pounds project, and in making Dundee one of the UK’s major bio-medical research centres.
Sir Philip joined the university in 1971 at a time when the biochemistry department only had 11 scientists based in a small building converted from stables that previously housed the horses used to deliver mail in the early 1900s.
Today, the College of Life Sciences comprises almost 800 scientists and support staff from 53 countries and is one of Europe’s premier research institutions. It is a key player in the thriving life sciences and biotechnology industry that employs 4,000 people directly and many more indirectly, accounting for 16 per cent of the city’s economy.
By Richard Levick |