MorphoSys AG, the Munich-based biotechnology company, reported that Centocor, Inc. exercised an option to expand its existing agreement with the Company.

Under the expanded agreement Centocor increased its funded research at MorphoSys and also ordered AutoCAL, the MorphoSys-developed system for automated screening of antibodies, for use in Centocor's research programs.

MorphoSys and Centocor, a member of the Johnson & Johnson family of companies, signed a five-year agreement in December 2000 that focuses on the generation of human antibodies in therapeutic and genomics research applications. Under this agreement, Centocor received an option on up to 30 therapeutic target molecules against which MorphoSys will make optimized fully human antibodies using HuCAL. MorphoSys also provided Centocor with its HuCAL antibody library to generate antibodies against various Centocor targets and Expressed Sequence Tags (EST's) in its functional genomics programs.

"The decision by Centocor to expand its agreement and order AutoCAL speaks to the excellent progress we have made with one of the industry leaders in developing antibody therapeutics," said Dr. Simon Moroney, CEO of MorphoSys.