Avid Bioservices, Inc., a subsidiary of Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, Inc., has entered a biomanufacturing contract to supply clinical material to Affitech A/S over the next year. The initial contract for services provides for several large-scale cGMP manufacturing runs as well as other cGMP-related services.

"Given our long-term relationship, Avid is an ideal partner for providing biomanufacturing services for our fully human antibody AT001/r84, as they have direct experience with Peregrine's anti-VEGF technology platform as well as this novel antibody we discovered from this technology," said Martin Welschof, managing director of Affitech. "Over the coming year, we look forward to having Avid's support as we expedite our clinical development plans for AT001/r84 for select growing pharmaceutical markets."

Also, Peregrine and Affitech have amended certain terms of their worldwide license agreements for Brazil, Russia and other countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), to expedite the development of AT001/r84 for these territories.

Under the amended terms, Peregrine and Affitech will reinvest their portions of any future milestone payments for the countries of Brazil, Russia and the CIS, toward the further advancement of AT001/r84. Should Affitech enter into a licensing deal for AT001/r84 in a major pharmaceutical market, it will reimburse Peregrine for its milestone payments applied to the program, while Affitech will be eligible to be reimbursed for as much as 50% of its development costs. The remaining terms of the original license agreements remain unchanged, including milestone and royalty payments. Additional terms were not disclosed.

"We believe our long-term relationship with Peregrine has enabled us to restructure a deal that is mutually beneficial by enabling us to speed up the development of AT001/r84 by partnering with NTS Plus in Russia and the CIS countries," said Martin Welschof, managing director of Affitech. "With funding provided by NTS Plus, we will accelerate our goal of developing a selective anti-angiogenesis antibody for these growing markets. We believe expediting the development of AT001/r84 in the exciting emerging pharmaceutical markets of Russia and eventually Brazil will dramatically increase the value of this program for Affitech, Peregrine, and a potential global pharmaceutical partner."

Additionally, Peregrine and Affitech have modified the terms of their research collaboration to eliminate Affitech's future obligations for the development of new antibody targets, in exchange for reduced future license fees, milestone payments and royalty obligations due from Peregrine for existing antibody targets. The collaboration has generated several fully human antibodies, including AT001/r84, PGN 635 (an antibody being evaluated as part of Peregrine's government contract) and other antibodies in preclinical development for the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases indications.