Omeros Corporation, a Seattle-based clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, and Affitech AS, a Norwegian human antibody therapeutics company, announced that they have entered into an agreement for the discovery and development of fully-human antibodies for Omeros' MASP-2 programme MASP-2, or mannan-binding lectin-associated serine protease-2, mediates activation of the complement system via the lectin pathway and is linked to multiple potential indications across a wide-range of inflammatory diseases including macular degeneration, rheumatoid arthritis, transplant rejection and cardiovascular and renal ischemia-reperfusion injury.
"This agreement marks an important milestone in our MASP-2 programme, and ensures that Omeros can access high-affinity, fully-human antibodies against MASP-2," stated Gregory Demopulos, MD, chairman and CEO of Omeros. "We are impressed by Afftech's technology, track record and personnel, and look forward to our collaboration."
Under this collaboration, Omeros, based on its exclusive intellectual property position, will continue to advance the development of its MASP-2 programme. Affitech will apply its expansive human antibody libraries and proprietary antibody discovery and screening technologies, including its AffiScreen platform and engineering methods, to generate fully-human MASP-2 antibodies for Omeros. Financial terms include a technology access fee, a series of milestone payments, and royalties on net sales, payable by Omeros. No further terms of the agreement were disclosed.
"We are excited about this collaboration with Omeros," said Martin Welschof, PhD, CEO of Affitech. "Omeros' proprietary MASP-2 program is focused on a target with broad commercial applications, and provides Affitech the opportunity to apply our expertise, human antibody library and screening platform to a non-cancer disease field. We believe that our proven technology, together with Omeros' intellectual property position and development capabilities, can yield a new and clinically important class of anti-inflammatory therapeutics."
Mannan-binding lectin-associated serine protease-2 (MASP-2), a novel pro-inflammatory protein target, is involved in the activation of the complement system. The complement system plays a role in the inflammatory response and becomes activated as a result of tissue damage (e.g., trauma) or infection by microbial pathogens. MASP-2 appears to be unique to, and required for the function of, a principal complement activation pathway, known as the lectin pathway. Importantly, inhibition of MASP-2 does not appear to interfere with the antibody-dependent classical complement activation pathway, a critical component of the acquired immune response to infection, and its abnormal function is associated with a wide-range of autoimmune disorders.
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.
Omeros Corporation is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company committed to discovering, developing and commercializing products focused on inflammation and disorders of the central nervous system.