Simon Moroney: Fishing for antibodies with MorphoSys
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- Simon Moroney studied chemistry in his native New Zealand. He founded Morphosys in 1992 in Martinsried, Bavaria. Source: Morphosys AG
13.05.2010 -
The term ‘going fishing’ doesn’t mean what you think at MorphoSys, where it actually refers to the hunt for a suitable antibody for a target molecule. The biotechnology company in Martinsried is contracted to do exactly this for research facilities and universities, as well as for the pharmaceutical industry. Unlike the nickname for their work, it is anything but easy.
Only highly specialised companies can employ and continuously master this advanced technology, which has taken many long years to develop and mature. At MorphoSys AG, they refer to it as HuCAL (Human Combinatorial Antibody Library). Today, they have an incredible ten-year cooperation in place with Novartis –one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world – which brings in 40 million euros annually. This is the price of access to the collective MorphoSys know-how.
In 1992, the native New Zealander Simon Moroney, alongside his colleague Andreas Plückthun from the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry in Martinsried, founded a company specialised in antibody synthesis. Moroney had studied chemistry, and graduated in chemistry as a fellow of the Commonwealth Foundation at the University of Oxford in 1984. Before he founded the company MorphoSys in 1992, he studied at the University of Cambridge (UK), at the University of British Columbia (Canada), and at the ETH in Zurich (Switzerland). He continued working at the Harvard Medical School in Boston, and at Immunogen (USA) in the development of therapeutic antibodies.
Starting with 1.1 million Deutschmarks
Moroney has headed MorphoSys since 1994, and in 1999 it was the first German biotech company to move on to the German stock exchange. In the meantime, the public company is included in the Prime Standard of the technology index TecDAX. At the time of founding, the prospects for the biotechnology industry in Germany were not exactly rosy. There were serious political restrictions in the Federal Republic; biopharmaceuticals were not permitted to be produced in Germany. The strategy of some pharmaceutical companies, therefore, was to shift production abroad, and to import the finished product. Against this background, the MorphoSys founders found it difficult to give their ideas a foothold among larger corporations.
They had more success, however, with two venture capitalists, Korda & Co. in London and Technostart from Stuttgart. “We were lucky to find such experienced investors. It was clear from the beginning that it would take at least five years before we could go public, and when they would have the opportunity to exit,” says Moroney. The founders raised 1.1 million Deutschmarks from this first round of financing. A further million was provided by state-run Technologie Beteiligungsgesellschaft (‘Technology Investment Association’, TGB). Three further rounds of financing involving other leading venture capital firms followed until the IPO could be carried out.
Antibodies by mail-order
With this behind them, Moroney and his team were able to pursue their goal of creating a modular and comprehensive antibody library. As the size of the library increased, so did the number of employees. Today, the company has around 340 staff on its books, and the in-house library includes 45 billion different and fully human antibodies. This is more than twenty times the average number found in human blood – around two billion. “This extremely high figure is based on a combinatorial effect,” says the postdoctoral biochemist. “We are able to optimise the antibodies through the systematic replacement of the building blocks.” This knowledge, stored in the form of reagents, and from which active substances against all possible diseases can be created, is stored securely in a variety of locations, and is protected by worldwide patents. The MorphoSys business model is divided into two segments: the development of therapeutic antibodies, and research-adapted antibodies.
Under the brand name AbD Serotec, the company offers specific monoclonal antibodies to clients in academia and industry. These are specially optimised for use in research and diagnostics, and can be prepared in just eight weeks. In addition, business partners can choose at any time from a catalogue of more than 10,000 products. The research antibodies and immunological reagents are available to purchase directly online. In 2005 and 2006, MorphoSys acquired two British-American companies, thereby crucially building on its position in this market segment.
Profit-sharing through milestone payments and royalties
The company maintains numerous partnerships with market leaders in the pharmaceutical industry for the synthesising of substances for therapeutic application. The firm is currently undertaking more than 50 antibody-development programs, and maintains cooperation agreements to remain closely involved with partners up to successful development. MorphoSys receives royalties if a drug makes it onto the market; sums are based on overall turnover.
The company has also developed proprietary compounds for the treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases. The goal is for interested partners to purchase corresponding licenses if the product is commercialised. The first product, MOR103, is close to completing a clinical phase I study. This is intended for application for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. A second, MOR202, recently successfully completed preclinical studies. It is hoped that this will be employed to combat various forms of breast cancer, multiple myeloma, and specific types of leukaemia. The point of attack is the molecule CD 38, a glycoprotein found in extremely large quantities on the surface of certain cancer cells. Studies have demonstrated that the developed human antibodies are able to kill these cancer cell lines.
MorphoSys offers not only therapeutic antibodies, and develops them itself, but has also become one of Europe's leading biotechnology companies in the field of research-oriented antibodies. With so much behind him, Simon Moroney did not have to wait long for official recognition. In 2002 he received the Federal Cross of Merit for his services to the German biotechnology industry.
This text was originally published in the brochure „Biotechnologie in Deutschland. 25 Jahre Unternehmensgründungen“,which was made for the federal ministry for education and research.
