In October 1997, GenPharm was acquired by Medarex, Inc., a biotechnology company developing antibody based products for a variety of diseases - itself an SBIR-involved firm. The HuMAb-Mouse provides a discovery platform to complement Medarex' core Bispecific antibody technology. In addition, Medarex has manufacturing and clinical development capabilities that GenPharm did not have in house. Consequently, the combined company has considerable expertise and technology that will support the development and commercialization of the HuMAb-Mouse. GenPharm International, Inc. is a leader in the application of transgenic animal technology to the development of human antibody products for therapeutic uses. Transgenic animals are animals into which new genetic material has been introduced at an early embryonic stage. GenPharm International is developing proprietary, patented technology, the HuMAb-Mouse(tm). With the HuMAb-Mouse technology, we can create a high affinity, fully human monoclonal antibody to virtually any antigen. These new antibodies can be made in a very short amount of time (3-6 months) with the patented transgenic HuMAb-Mouse and are attractive for in vivo use in therapeutic and diagnostic products for a number of reasons, including: They contain only human sequences, avoiding issues that may arise from the murine components of humanized or chimeric antibodies. They avoid the complex patent issues and costs associated with humanization technology. They can be created with high specificity and affinity (binding constants >10 10) against different epitopes on the desired antigen.
