Antibodies for cancer treatment the focus of new collaboration

Toronto, ON and Fremont, CA October 2, 2003 ARIUS Research, a medical biotechnology company that specializes in functional anti-cancer antibodies, and Protein Design Labs, that develops antibody humanization and development, today announced they have signed an agreement for a new three-year partnership to discover and develop antibodies for the potential treatment of cancer. ARIUS uses patented and proprietary processes to discover and identify antibodies that have the intrinsic ability to kill cancer cells.

Under the agreement, ARIUS will receive a technology access fee to discover new, anti-cancer antibodies. PDL will perform additional validation studies on a number of the antibody candidates and will have the option to in-license a specified number of them for further development. ARIUS would receive licensing fees, milestone payments, and a percentage royalty on future sales of any licensed antibody. Financial terms were not disclosed.

ARIUS says it has established a library of 200 functional anti-cancer antibodies of which 54 are in existing research collaborations. ARIUS has released results for seven antibodies that have shown positive effects in animal models, two of which were presented at The American Association for Cancer Research in July 2003.