Cantab Pharmaceuticals plc announced that it has signed a two-year agreement with the University of Oxford, giving thecompany the option to acquire rights to certain inventionsconcerning the therapeutic use of T cell receptors.

The Cambridge, England, company (NASDAQ:CNTBY) alsoreported that it will refocus its research collaboration with St.Bartholomew's Centre for Clinical Research and UniversityCollege London. Originally, the collaborators had focused onevaluating a monoclonal antibody, LM-IBD1, to treat Crohn'sdisease, an inflammation of the bowels. But they have droppeddevelopment of the antibody product because preclinicalresults indicated that it wasn't selective enough in blockingdamage to intestinal tissue.

"This allows us ... to make and screen new monoclonalantibodies to identify more specific drug candidates," said AlanMunro, Cantab's chief scientific officer. -- Jennifer Van Brunt

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