Micromet Highlights Breadth and Potency of BiTE Antibody Platform at AACR Annual Meeting

BETHESDA, Md., April 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Micromet, Inc. (Nasdaq: MITI), a biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of next-generation antibodies for the treatment of cancer, today announced that results from studies highlighting pre-clinical advances with its proprietary BiTE antibody technology were presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting in Washington, DC.  

The Company and its collaborators reported pre-clinical data characterizing new BiTE antibodies targeting 11 tumor-associated antigens, including CEA, EGFR, IGFR-1, cMet and FAP-alpha.  The data demonstrate that BiTE antibodies can be generated to target a wide range of tumor antigens of highly different function, size and molecular composition, illustrating the wide applicability of the BiTE antibody technology for the treatment of diverse cancer indications.

"Data presented at AACR this year demonstrates the versatility of the BiTE antibody platform," said Patrick Baeuerle, Ph.D., Micromet's Senior Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer. "The breadth and potency of product candidates developed utilizing our next-generation technology give us confidence that BiTE antibodies have the potential to significantly impact the way cancer is treated."

Researchers will present additional preclinical data on programs utilizing the Company's BiTE technology during the course of the meeting.

Abstracts can be accessed through the AACR website, www.aacr.org. All posters will be accessible from Micromet's website at www.micromet-inc.com after they are presented.

About BiTE Antibodies

BiTE® antibodies are designed to direct the body's cytotoxic, or cell-destroying, T cells against tumor cells, and represent a new therapeutic approach to cancer therapy. Typically, antibodies cannot engage T cells because T cells lack the appropriate receptors for binding antibodies. BiTE antibodies have been shown to bind T cells to tumor cells, ultimately inducing a self-destruction process in the tumor cells referred to as apoptosis, or programmed cell death. In the presence of BiTE antibodies, T cells have been demonstrated to serially eliminate tumor cells, which explains the activity of BiTE antibodies at very low concentrations. Through the killing process, T cells start to proliferate, which leads to an increased number of T cells at the site of attack.

About Micromet

Micromet, Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, development and commercialization of antibody-based therapies for the treatment of cancer. Its product development pipeline includes novel antibodies generated with its proprietary BiTE® technology, as well as conventional monoclonal antibodies. Two of Micromet's BiTE antibodies and three of its conventional antibodies are currently in clinical trials.  Micromet has collaborations with a number of leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including sanofi-aventis, Bayer Schering Pharma, Merck Serono, MedImmune and Nycomed. Additional information can be found at www.micromet-inc.com

Safe Harbor Statement

This press release contains forward looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and other federal securities laws. Any statements contained herein which do not describe historical facts are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from historical results or from any future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include statements regarding the potential applications for our BiTE antibody technology and its use in the treatment of cancer. You are urged to consider statements that include the words "ongoing," "may," "will," "believes," "potential," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "intends," or the negative of those words or other similar words to be uncertain and forward-looking. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from any future results expressed or implied by any forward-looking statements include the risk that our preclinical data is not confirmed in clinical trials with our product candidates. This factor and others are more fully discussed in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2009.  We caution you not to place undue reliance on any forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made.  We disclaim any obligation to publicly update or revise any such statements to reflect any change in expectations or in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statements may be based, or that may affect the likelihood that actual results will differ from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.

SOURCE Micromet, Inc.