LIGAND PHARMACEUTICALS INCORPORATED (NASDAQ:LGND) Files An 8-K Other EventsItem 8.01Other Information.
On July 9, 2018, Ligand’s wholly-owned subsidiary Crystal Bioscience, Inc. entered into a Research & Development Agreement with Janssen Research & Development, LLC , one of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, for the development by Ligand of a heavy-chain-only (“HCO”) version of the OmniChicken™ transgenic chicken platform. Following successful development of the HCO OmniChicken, Janssen may request that Ligand conduct one or more HCO OmniChicken immunization campaigns with novel antigens designated by Janssen Research & Development, LLC, for discovery of fully-human antibodies to be further developed and commercialized by Johnson & Johnson.
Ligand is eligible to earn defined milestone payments upon achievement of pre-determined deliverables. Upon completion of development of the HCO OmniChicken Ligand may make the HCO OmniChicken platform available to other commercial partners.
Ligand’s HCO OmniChicken platform will have two multi-specific applications: the generation and discovery of domain antibodies and the generation and discovery of polyclonal HCO antibodies.
Ligand's OmniAb® therapeutic antibody platforms, OmniRat®, OmniFlic®, OmniMouse® and OmniChicken™, produce highly diversified, fully human antibody repertoires optimized in vivo for manufacturability, therapeutic efficacy and reduced immunogenicity. OmniChicken™ chickens have been genetically modified to have the immunoglobulin genes replaced with corresponding human genes.
About LIGAND PHARMACEUTICALS INCORPORATED (NASDAQ:LGND)
Ligand Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (Ligand) is a biopharmaceutical company that focuses on developing and acquiring technologies that help pharmaceutical companies discover and develop medicines. The Company employs research technologies, such as nuclear receptor assays, high throughput computer screening, formulation science, liver targeted pro-drug technologies and antibody discovery technologies to assist companies in their work toward obtaining prescription drug approvals. It has have partnerships and license agreements with over 85 pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, and over 140 different programs under license with it are in various stages of commercialization and development. Its partners have programs in clinical development targeting seizure, coma, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, muscle wasting, liver disease and kidney disease, among others. It is developing a small molecule glucagon receptor antagonist for the treatment of Type II diabetes mellitus.