Abgenix Expands Its Product Discovery Efforts
FREMONT, Calif., May 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Abgenix, Inc. (Nasdaq: ABGX)
announced today that it has hired Gregory Landes, Ph.D. as Vice President,
Product Discovery. Dr. Landes, a biochemist with eighteen years of experience
in the biotechnology industry, was most recently Vice President, Genetics and
Genomics at Genzyme.
"Abgenix is pleased to have Dr. Landes join our research team," stated
R. Scott Greer, chairman and chief executive officer of Abgenix. "Dr. Landes
will direct our efforts to develop new antibody products for early stage
targets derived from our genomics partnerships."
Abgenix is building a high volume product discovery platform capitalizing
on its industry-leading human antibody technology. This capacity will be
important in managing the numerous product opportunities Abgenix has available
to it through its collaborations with genomics and biotech companies and
academic labs. Dr. Landes, who reports to the company's chief scientific
officer, Geoff Davis, Ph.D., brings significant experience in both gene
discovery and functional genomics in a biopharmaceutical research setting.
Drs. Davis and Landes expect to nearly double the size of Abgenix's research
organization over the next year.
Abgenix is a biopharmaceutical company that develops and intends to
commercialize antibody therapies for the treatment of such conditions as
transplant-related diseases, inflammatory and autoimmune disorders,
cardiovascular disease, infectious diseases, and cancer. For more information
on Abgenix, visit the company's Web site at http://www.abgenix.com.
Abgenix developed XenoMouse technology to enable the rapid generation of
high affinity, fully human antibody product candidates to essentially any
disease target appropriate for antibody therapy. Abgenix has collaborative
arrangements with multiple pharmaceutical, genomics, and biotechnology
companies involving its XenoMouse technology. In addition, Abgenix has
multiple proprietary antibody product candidates under development internally,
three of which are in human clinical trials for graft-versus-host disease,
psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, and cancer.
Statements made in this press release about Abgenix's XenoMouse
technology, product development activities and collaborative arrangements
other than statements of historical fact, are forward looking statements and
are subject to a number of uncertainties that could cause actual results to
differ materially from the statements made, including risks associated with
the success of clinical trials, the progress of research and product
development programs, the regulatory approval process, competitive products,
future capital requirements and the extent and breadth of Abgenix's patent
portfolio. Please see Abgenix's public filings with the Securities and
Exchange Commission for information about risks that may affect Abgenix.
SOURCE Abgenix, Inc.
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http://www.abgenix.com
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http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/126548.html or fax,
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CONTACT:
Kurt Leutzinger, Chief Financial Officer of
Abgenix, Inc., 510-608-6575
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