Agreements

* On January 7, 2014, Crystal Bioscience and Boehringer Ingelheim have announced that they have entered into an agreement to collaborate on the discovery and development of therapeutic antibodies. Crystal Bioscience will apply its proprietary gel encapsulated microenvironment (GEM) and chicken immunization platforms to discover antibodies to multiple targets selected by Boehringer Ingelheim, with the goal of discovering different development candidates that may result in new or better therapies. Boehringer Ingelheim will have the option to conduct the further development and commercialization of the antibodies.  Under the terms of the agreement, Crystal will receive an upfront technology access fee and research funding for each program, and may receive technical success fees, option exercise fees, and other downstream payments.
Crystal Bioscience\'s platform is \"powered by evolution,\" exploiting the large phylogenetic distance between mammals and birds to generate a diverse array of antibodies to human targets that have proven intractable in mammalian and other discovery platforms. Crystal’s patented platform provides the ability to isolate monoclonal antibodies from immunized chickens, and can screen simultaneously for specificity and biological activity. It has led to the discovery of bioactive monoclonals directed against difficult targets, including GPCRs and ion channels. Chicken antibodies often recognize both human and mouse orthologs, which can simplify early stages of drug development where mouse disease models are used.