Affitech AS, the Norwegian human antibody therapeutics company has accomplished the second milestone in its research and licensing collaboration with Roche to produce fully-human recombinant antibodies against an unnamed oncology target.

Affitech has successfully used its MBAS (Molecule Based Antibody Screening) system that included its proprietary antibody library and high throughput screening technology to identify several fully-human lead antibody candidates. These were then subjected to further engineering in order to generate final candidates that met Roche's various predetermined success criteria. This accomplishment triggered a milestone payment of an undisclosed amount from Roche to Affitech.

"This was a particularly challenging target that Roche asked us to investigate and we are delighted to have delivered a selected group of antibodies, on schedule, that meet their exacting criteria," commented Martin Welschof, chief executive officer of Affitech.

Affitech and Roche entered into this collaboration in 2007 for Affitech to identify and engineer fully-human recombinant antibodies against one of Roche's oncology targets. Under the terms of the agreement Roche will now utilize these antibodies for further preclinical evaluation with exclusive rights to develop and commercialize resulting antibodies. Affitech would receive additional milestone payments upon successful development by Roche of these antibodies in oncology or other indications and royalties on worldwide net sales of any successfully developed product candidates.

Affitech AS is a privately held human therapeutic antibody discovery and development company with headquarters and R&D facilities in Oslo, Norway and its US subsidiary in the San Francisco Bay Area.