Monsanto Company and Complix NV Sign Collaboration to Bring New Technologies to Agriculture

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• Publié par: complix
• Nombre de lectures: 13
• Langue: English

Extrait

Monsanto Company and Complix NV Sign

Collaboration to Bring New Technologies to

Agriculture

PR Newswire

ST. LOUIS and HASSELT, Belgium, September 20, 2012

ST. LOUIS

and HASSELT,

Belgium

,

September 20, 2012

/PRNewswire/ --

Monsanto Company and Complix NV today announced

they have entered into a collaboration agreement to

evaluate and develop Complix's proprietary

Alphabody® protein technology in the field of

agriculture.

Complix is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and

development of its Alphabody® technology platform. Alphabodies are a unique

class of protein therapeutics that are potentially active against a broad range of

disease targets, including intracellular targets. Alphabodies are small single

chain alpha-helical proteins that are designed by computer modelling, but are

inspired by naturally existing protein structures. This collaboration represents

the first application of Complix's Alphabody® technology in agriculture.

"Complix's expertise in protein targeting technology offers a novel platform to

further enhance our trait development capabilities," said Bob Reiter,

Monsanto's Vice President of Biotechnology. "We believe this technology offers

great promise and could contribute to development of new traits to protect

plants from pests and diseases. We are pleased to work with Complix to

develop this promising technology in a way that might deliver on-farm benefits

to our grower customers."

Under the terms of the agreement, Complix will grant Monsanto worldwide

exclusive rights to access Complix's Alphabody® platform technology for use in

plant agriculture. Complix retains the exclusive rights on any discoveries made

under this collaboration for use outside the field of plant agriculture. The

agreement also includes options to expand the collaboration across multiple

applications within plant agriculture. Further terms were not disclosed.

"We are delighted to have concluded this agreement with Monsanto, a leading

agricultural company with a strong track record of delivering innovations to the

marketplace," said Mark Vaeck, Chief Executive Officer of Complix NV. "By

working with Monsanto, our partner of choice for this space, I am confident that

we will be able to apply our Alphabody platform to address some of the most

important challenges facing agriculture today and tomorrow. This strategic

alliance, will also enable us to create significant value for our shareholders as it

will contribute to further strengthening and expanding our Alphabody platform

and help Complix to establish its leadership position in the field of cross-over

therapeutics."

About Monsanto Company

Monsanto Company is a leading global provider of technology-based solutions

and agricultural products that improve farm productivity and food quality.

Monsanto remains focused on enabling both small-holder and large-scale

farmers to produce more from their land while conserving more of our world's

natural resources such as water and energy. To learn more about our business

and our commitments, please visit: http://www.monsanto.com. Follow our

business on Twitter® at http://www.twitter.com/MonsantoCo, on the company

blog, Beyond the Rows at http://www.monsantoblog.com, or subscribe to our

News Release RSS Feed.

About Complix NV

Complix discovers and develops Alphabodies, a novel and proprietary class of

biopharmaceuticals that delivers significant advantages over current protein

therapeutic approaches. Alphabodies comprise an alpha-helical coiled coil

structure, which makes them ideal protein scaffolds for therapeutic applications

as they combine the specificity of antibodies with small molecule-like

properties. Alphabodies' most important advantage is their ability to address

currently undruggable extracellular and, in particular, intracellular targets.

Complix is developing cell penetrating Alphabodies (CPABs) that have the

potential to modulate intracellular PPIs, and has generated data demonstrating

that CPABs are able to enter cells, bind to disease targets and can generate

biological effects at low concentrations. CPABs have been designed to tackle

the significant proportion of all known human disease targets that are located

inside cells and cannot be addressed by either small chemical drugs or

biologics. These targets belong to the most interesting class of potential drug

targets, namely intracellular protein-protein interactions (PPIs), which are

involved in important disease processes, such as those causing cancer, CNS,

inflammation or metabolic diseases.

Alphabodies' unique design, which has been invented by the Complix founders,

means that the Company has a unique freedom-to-operate position. Complix

has already established a strong intellectual property position for its Alphabody

platform through the filing of several broad patent applications.

Complix´s current R&D focus is on the development of novel Alphabody-based

therapies for inflammation/autoimmunity and cancer.

Complix is headquartered in Hasselt (

Belgium

) in the Life Sciences incubator

BioVille, and has research facilities in Ghent (

Belgium

) and in

Luxembourg

. The

Company has a fully owned subsidiary in

Luxembourg

and a strategic alliance

with the public research institute CRP-Santé. For further information, please

visit http://www.complix.com.

Contacts

Complix NV

Dr. Mark Vaeck, CEO

[phone]

[e-mail]