GSK is to buy Domantis - a company based on discoveries by MRC scientists
8th December 2006
The Medical Research Council is set to receive more than seven million pounds as part of GlaxoSmithKline’s £230m acquisition of the antibody company Domantis Ltd.
Domantis, set up by two Medical Research Council scientists, has pioneered methods for the production of the fundamental building blocks of our immune system known as antibody single domains (dAbs). The science behind Domantis originated at the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB) in Cambridge.
In the 1984, César Milstein and Georges Köhler won the Nobel Prize for their discovery, at the LMB, of methods to produce totally pure ‘monoclonal’ antibodies. Antibody single domains are the smallest parts of antibody molecules, which form the natural defence of the body. They help antibodies to recognise invaders such as viruses and bacteria, but they can also recognise other targets, including components of the normal machinery of human cells that go wrong in disease.
The use of domains as individual molecules or as building blocks for larger molecules allows the development of a wider range of therapeutics and applications than with classical monoclonal antibodies.
In 2000, Sir Gregory Winter and Dr Ian Tomlinson at the LMB founded Domantis to develop antibody therapeutics using single domains . Seed funding was provided by the MRC associated venture fund MVM in 2000. In 2001, a major investment was secured from the biotechnology company Peptech (Australia), and Dr Tomlinson left the LMB to head Domantis research. Domantis has collaborative programmes with major industrial partners including Abbott and Bristol-Myers Squibb and has reported the development of several preclinical leads. As part of the deal with GSK, the MRC will receive at least £7.35m and will also benefit from its interest in MVM.
Dr Hugh Pelham, the director of LMB said:
“The LMB is proud of its tradition of Nobel Laureates. Coming on the heels of the sale to AstraZeneca of Cambridge Antibody Technology, which was also co-founded by Sir Gregory, it looks like the LMB has also developed a cadre of leading inventors and scientist entrepreneurs.”
Sir Gregory added:
“Both Cambridge Antibody Technology and Domantis are based on a method that generates a huge and diverse repertoire of antibodies (or single domains in the case of Domantis) fused to the outside of a bacterial virus, and then selects out those rare ones that bind to a particular target. By repeated cycles of growth and selection the desired traits can be chosen and unwanted traits can be discarded, all in the space of a few weeks. The power of Darwinian evolution to create and refine proteins is quite staggering”.
Professor Colin Blakemore, the chief executive of the MRC commented:
“This is another example of Medical Research Council scientists helping to translate world-class fundamental research into treatments to improve human health. I’m delighted that collaborations between the MRC and industry are helping us to bring benefits in healthcare from first-class research – a process highlighted this week by the Cooksey Report: ‘A Review of UK Health Research Funding’. The MRC’s mission is to support research to improve human health, and to advance knowledge and technology that improve the economic competitiveness of the UK. The MRC is delighted that research from its laboratories and developed further by Domantis has gone so well. We look forward to the development of new medicines through GSK’s purchase of Domantis.”
Notes to Editors
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