Morphotek is one of the leading companies in the life science industry that develops novel classes of biological-based products to treat cancer, inflammation and infectious diseases. Since its founding in 2000, Morphotek has made extraordinary progress in discovering and developing monoclonal antibodies to treat these diseases and continues to develop additional antibody products using its proprietary technologies.

Post-graduate research executed by Morphotek’s President and CEO, Dr. Nicholas Nicolaides, during his studies at Johns Hopkins Medical School where he co-invented the company’s legacy technology called morphogenics was the basis for the company’s inception. Along with the honed applications for applying morphogenics for product development refined by the company’s other co-founders, Dr. Philip Sass and Dr. Luigi Grasso, morphogenics has taken Morphotek an incredible distance in the advancement of novel pharmaceutical products and targets.

Morphotek currently has two lead therapeutic antibodies in clinical development, MORAb-003 and MORAb-009. MORAb-003 specifically targets the folate receptor alpha, a cell surface receptor over-expressed on ovarian, breast, colorectal, lung and renal tumors. The antibody is currently being evaluated in a multi-institutional Phase 2 clinical trial in patients with relapsed platinum-sensitive ovarian cancer. Morphotek’s second clinical-stage compound, MORAb-009, is currently in a multi-institutional Phase 2 clinical trial in 1st line therapy for the treatment of patients with inoperable pancreatic cancer. This antibody targets a protein called mesothelin which is over-expressed by pancreatic, mesothelioma, non-small cell lung and ovarian cancers.

In the spring of 2007, Morphotek was acquired by Eisai Co., a global health care pharmaceutical company. One of Eisai’s three main areas of focus is oncology/critical care, and the company is well positioned to market oncology products developed by Morphotek. Morphotek’s propriety technologies and promising therapeutic antibodies, combined with Eisai’s existing research programs and infrastructure, enables the companies to better address unmet medical needs of patients, especially those with cancer, all around the world.