MorphoSys AG has announced a further expansion of its existing license agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company.

Under the amended agreement, MorphoSys grants Bristol-Myers Squibb access to its HuCAL GOLD library for use in Bristol-Myers Squibb's pharmaceutical discovery programmes for target characterization and validation, as well as for therapeutic and diagnostic antibody product development.

Prior to the most recent expansion of the existing license agreement, Bristol-Myers Squibb had a non-exclusive license to use prior versions of MorphoSys' HuCAL library and the AutoCAL system, which is MorphoSys' established system for fully automated high-throughput antibody generation, installed at one of Bristol-Myers Squibb's facilities in the US.

Bristol-Myers Squibb currently applies MorphoSys' proprietary antibody technology in its pharmaceutical discovery programmes for target characterization and validation. In addition, Bristol-Myers Squibb has an option to further develop promising antibody candidates arising from these programs as therapeutics and diagnostics, the company release said.