By Matthew Willett

Collaborations for the discovery and development of fully human antibodies continue to emerge as Xenerex Biosciences and Peregrine Pharmaceuticals Inc. joined forces, and Genmab A/S and deCODE genetics did the same.

Xenerex, a subsidiary of San Diego-based Avanir Pharmaceuticals Inc., will take three Peregrine antigen targets for generation of fully human monoclonal antibodies (MAbs). Once generated, Peregrine, of Tustin, Calif., will take responsibility for product development, manufacturing and commercialization.

Xenerex will receive up-front research fees and could earn milestones and royalties on future sales from Peregrine. More specific financial details were not disclosed.

Xenerex, created last year with a platform technology that creates fully human MAbs using immunodeficient mice rather than transgenic mice, uses human cells to take advantage of the unique in vivo cellular interactions in the human immune system that result in natural affinity maturation.

The Xenerex system grafts human lymhpoid cells, peripheral blood lymphocytes or human spleen cells into severe combined immunodeficient mice, then immunizes the grafted mice with an antigen. The host mice then produce antibodies.

Peregrine recently reacquired rights to the radiolabeled antibody Oncolym for treatment of non-Hodgkin¿s B-cell lymphoma from Schering AG, of Berlin. (See BioWorld Today, June 11, 2001.)

In a separate MAb deal, Medarex Inc.¿s European partner, Genmab, of Copenhagen, Denmark, formed an alliance with the population genomics company deCODE, of Reykjavik, Iceland, putting the UltiMAb platform to work yet again.

The broad-based collaboration calls for deCODE to contribute novel targets from its population-based genomics research and its genetically validated target discovery program. The broad collaboration will cover disease areas including cardiovascular and inflammatory diseases as well as cancer.

The companies will share development costs and profits from commercialized products. The structure is typical of an antibody-generation deal with Medarex, of Princeton, N.J., which will contribute resources to the collaboration and share certain costs and commercial rights.

In a separate announcement, deCODE and Genmab entered another agreement, this one to develop a DNA-based test to predict individual clinical response to Genmab¿s rheumatoid arthritis (RA) treatment, HuMax-CD4.

Genmab will provide deCODE with committed research funding and potential milestone payments for a marketed product. DeCODE and its pharmacogenomics and clinical trials subsidiary, Encode, will conduct studies to identify key genetic factors that can predict clinical response to treatments for moderate to severe RA.

Genmab¿s HuMax-CD4, a fully human MAb, is in Phase II trials in RA.

The UltiMAb technology generates fully human MAbs using HuMAb-Mouse transgenic mice. The technology has been applied to more than 30 collaborations centered on more than 60 therapeutic targets.

Medarex has entered a dozen antibody partnerships this year, as many by this summer as it entered in all of 2000.

Medarex¿s stock (NASDAQ:MEDX) dropped $1.11 Tuesday to close at $26.45. DeCODE¿s stock (NASDAQ:DCGN) dropped 6 cents to close at $8.74. Avanir¿s shares (AMEX:AVN) fell 3 cents to close at $5.95, and Peregrine¿s stock (NASDAQ:PPHM) gained 7 cents to close at $1.87.