Kymab Announces Launch of Kymouse HK

CAMBRIDGE, England, September 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

First human antibody strain from its advanced discovery platform

Kymab, a monoclonal antibody biopharmaceutical company, announced today the launch of Kymouse HK, the first strain from the innovative Kymouse™ antibody discovery platform, which enables rapid discovery of high affinity antibody drug candidates.

Kymouse HK is a transgenic mouse that has been designed to produce a diverse repertoire of high affinity fully human heavy/kappa chain antibodies to a broad range of drug targets. This represents a significant advance over existing commercial strains that are currently used in the pharmaceutical industry.

Kymouse is an antibody discovery platform that has been designed to surpass the diversity of antibodies produced in humans. The platform provides unique tools to discover functional and developable drug candidates to address challenging drug targets. The platform is covered by a strong intellectual property portfolio, including a European Patent (EP2421357) that has received notice of allowance from the European Patent Office.

Dr. Allan Bradley, Chief Scientific Officer of Kymab, said: "Our Kymouse HK strain involves targeted insertion of human heavy chain and kappa chain genes into the corresponding mouse genes to ensure their correct regulatory control and usage, without perturbation of non-immunoglobulin gene function. We have demonstrated that Kymouse HK has a normal B-‐cell compartment, produces high antibody titres of all isotypes in response to antigen challenge and affinity matures antibodies in vivo, through normal rearrangement and somatic hypermutation processes."

Andrew Sandham, Chief Executive Officer, said: "We have developed the innovative Kymouse using novel embryonic stem cell and recombineering technologies. We have applied meticulous attention to quality control at every stage. I am delighted that our efforts have been validated through the launch of our first commercial strain. Our strategy is to use Kymouse HK for our own antibody drug discovery projects and to employ a broad partnering approach to make the strain available to pharmaceutical companies for their own discovery programmes."

About Kymab

Kymab is a "platform to product" biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of fully human monoclonal antibody drugs using its proprietary Kymouse™ transgenic antibody platform.

Kymouse™ has been designed to maximise the diversity of human antibodies produced in response to immunisation with antigens. Selecting from a broad diversity of fully human antibodies assures the highest probability of finding that rare drug candidate with best-in-class characteristics.

Founded in 2009, Kymab raised £20m of equity financing in 2010 from the investment division of the Wellcome Trust. It has an experienced management team with a successful track record in drug discovery and development.

For further information, please visit http://www.kymab.com

Contact Kymab:
Andrew Sandham, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Tel: +44(0)1223-833301, Email: [email protected]

M: Communications
Mary Clark
Tel: +44 207920 2361, Email: [email protected]

Kymab, Kymouse, Kymouse HK are trademarks of Kymab Limited.

SOURCE Kymab