Ganymed Pharmaceuticals AG announced the sale of a majority of the company shares to ATS. The shares that have been sold to ATS were formerly those Ganymed shares held by Ingro Finanz, KfW, Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg (LBBW), Nextech Venture, Varuma, VI Partners, WFT and a number of private investors from Switzerland and Germany. ATS now becomes the majority shareholder of Ganymed.

Ganymed is at the same time expanding its pipeline to include five further antibody projects in development for breast, colorectal, lung, pancreatic and prostate cancers, as well as for other solid tumours with high medical need and large market potential. This is in addition to Ganymed's lead antibody, iMAB362, which will enter a clinical trial for metastatic gastro-esophageal carcinoma in Q4 2008.

"Together with ATS, Ganymed is pursuing a long-term development strategy and a substantial expansion of our antibody pipeline to include a broad portfolio of development candidates for the treatment of solid cancers," said founder and CSO Dr Özlem Türeci.

"Over the last year we have been very impressed with Ganymed's exceptional team, who are, together with a very promising pipeline, the justification for our long-term confidence in Ganymed. We see this offer as a logical step to further expand the large developmental potential of Ganymed and set the Company upon a solid basis," commented Helmut Jeggle, spokesperson for ATS.

"We are very proud of what has been achieved with the syndicate of early investors' financial, strategic and operational support together with the Ganymed team over a period of otherwise economically difficult years," remarked Dr Alfred Scheidegger, founding partner of Nextech Venture.

From its foundation until the start of clinical development, Ganymed has been supported by the selling investors, under the lead of Nextech Venture, through three financing rounds.

Ganymed Pharmaceuticals AG is a leading biopharmaceutical company offering smart antibody therapeutics for ideal targets in solid cancers. The company's discovery engine is one of the most powerful integrated solutions to building an antibody cancer pipeline in the industry.

ATS Beteiligungsverwaltung GmbH operates as a 'Family Office' for the Strüngmann brothers, offering their know-how and strategic support to selected biotech companies.