Adheron Therapeutics acquired by Roche

ABZENA PLC

("Abzena", the "Group")

Adheron Therapeutics is acquired by Roche for its therapeutic antibody

Antibody fully humanised using Abzena's proprietary technology

Cambridge, UK, 9 October 2015 - Abzena plc (AIM:ABZA), a life sciences Group providing services and technologies that enable the development and manufacture of biopharmaceutical products, notes the announcement today of the acquisition by Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) of Adheron Therapeutics ("Adheron").

Adheron was a privately held biotechnology company developing SDP051, a product that disrupts cell adhesion which can potentially be used to treat inflammatory and autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and fibrotic disease. SDP051 was fully humanised using Abzena's Composite Human Antibody™ technology.

Adheron has completed a Phase I study of SDP051 and the product was shown to be safe and well-tolerated. Further development of SDP051 will be pursued by Roche.

SDP051 is one of Abzena's portfolio of ten clinical-stage Composite Human Antibodies being developed by the Group's partners. Abzena has a significant portfolio of licence and licence option agreements covering these products with many more being evaluated in research programmes and in preclinical development.

John Burt, CEO of Abzena said:

"The acquisition of Adheron by a major pharma company is great endorsement and validation of our Composite Human Antibody approach for creation of fully humanised therapeutic antibodies.

 "This is also the third time we have seen the acquisition of a biotech company, pursuing products created through the application of our technology to improve their clinical profile."

The announcement made by Adheron today can be found at: www.adherontherapeutics.com/news-events/

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About Abzena

Abzena provides proprietary technologies and complementary services in the UK and US to enable the development and manufacture of biopharmaceuticals. 

The Group comprises Antitope, PolyTherics and PacificGMP, which between them have built a global customer base including the majority of the top 20 biopharmaceutical companies as well as large and small biotech companies and academic groups.

Antitope provides immunogenicity assessment, protein engineering to create humanized antibodies and deimmunised therapeutic proteins, and cell line development for manufacture.

PacificGMP provides contract process development and manufacture of biopharmaceuticals, including monoclonal antibodies, recombinant proteins, vaccines, and gene therapy and cell therapy products, for preclinical and clinical studies.

PolyTherics specializes in proprietary site-specific conjugation technologies for antibody drug conjugate development and solutions for optimizing the therapeutic properties of biopharmaceuticals.

Abzena has its main operations in Cambridge, UK and in San Diego, CA, USA. The shares of Abzena plc are quoted on the AIM segment of the London Stock Exchange under the symbol ABZA.

www.abzena.com