The technology, developed by the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, was the basis for the setting up of Cambridge Antibody Technology Ltd in 1990 as a business.

The American pharmaceutical company, Abbott has agreed to pay (via Cambridge Antibody Technology) US$255 million in place of the future royalties the MRC, Scripps Research and Stratagene would have received on sales of HUMIRA. In addition, Cambridge Antibody Technology will pay the MRC a further US$7.5m over five years from 2006, providing that HUMIRA remains on the market.

The MRC patents cover a series of inventions made by Sir Gregory Winter and his colleagues at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology during the late 1980s and early 1990s for making 'human monoclonal antibodies'.

Sir Gregory commented "Our inventions originated from pure curiosity-driven and long-term basic research funded at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology by the MRC. Provided such research is intelligently and quickly exploited, it can pay handsome dividends for medicine, UK industry and human health. It can also generate considerable royalty income, which ploughed back into science will help generate the medicines and industries of the future."

Professor Colin Blakemore, the MRC Chief Executive added "This deal is great news for British science. It shows the wonderful achievements that can be won for human health when the Medical Research Council works with industry. It also gives the UK an opportunity to reap the rewards from our past discoveries to make the fullest possible investment in future science. The agreement will help us give our scientists new research facilities and the best laboratories. We also want to invest in initiatives which will help us to translat
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Contact: Keith McKeown
kmckeown@scripps.edu
858-784-8134
Scripps Research Institute
26-Oct-2005