adivo and Bayer Animal Health sign global collaboration agreement

Martinsried/ Munich, Germany, April 17, 2019 – adivo GmbH and Bayer Animal Health GmbH have signed a global collaboration agreement to develop therapeutic antibodies for veterinary med-icine. Under the terms of the Agreement, Bayer Animal Health will have access to adivo’s species-specific monoclonal antibody technology. Financial Terms were not disclosed.

adivo and Bayer Animal Health have agreed to jointly discover and develop species-specific ther-apeutic monoclonal antibodies that address the demand for innovative therapies for companion animals. The companies aim to provide veterinarians with new and innovative treatments that ad-dress unmet medical needs of their animal patients. adivo will select species-specific antibodies using its proprietary fully canine phage display library. Bayer Animal Health will provide targets involved in severe animal diseases.

Dr. Douglas Hutchens, Bayer Animal Health’s Head of Drug Discovery, External Innovation & Chief Veterinary Officer, said: “Today’s agreement is another example of how we realize our innovation strategy: By combining the know-how from creative start-up companies like adivo with opportuni-ties derived from Bayer’s research, we broaden our space of therapeutic medicine options and complement our portfolio. We are constantly looking for innovative technologies that enable us to generate novel treatment options for the companion animal sector. Now, we will focus on evolving the options presented by adivo from research and development to market maturity.”

Dr. Kathrin Ladetzki-Baehs, Managing Director of adivo commented: “At adivo, we truly believe that pets have a positive impact on our society. By developing novel medicines for companion animals, we want to make a difference for veterinarians and pet-parents. Today, we are more than pleased and excited to have gained such a committed and experienced collaboration partner, to jointly develop new treatment options.”

To date, therapeutic antibodies still represent a neglected class of drugs in veterinary medicine. However, these molecules offer a variety of future therapeutic options for diseases that can still not be adequately treated today.

About adivo
adivo is a German biotech company based in Martinsried near Munich specializing in generating species-specific therapeutic antibodies for companion animals. The adivo team aims to initially address high medical needs in dogs including cancer and chronic inflammation, with the potential of expanding activities into the development of therapeutics for other species in the future. Using its fully canine-based antibody library, adivo, either alone or with partners, intends to generate therapeutics for dogs that are well tolerated and efficacious as well as to continuously improve its technology. For further information, please refer to https://adivo.vet/.

About Bayer
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the life science fields of health care and nutrition. Its products and services are designed to benefit people by supporting efforts to over-come the major challenges presented by a growing and aging global population. At the same time, the Group aims to increase its earning power and create value through innovation and growth. Bayer is committed to the principles of sustainable development, and the Bayer brand stands for trust, reliability and quality throughout the world. In fiscal 2018, the Group employed around 117,000 people and had sales of 39.6 billion euros. Capital expenditures amounted to 2.6 billion euros, R&D expenses to 5.2 billion euros. For more information, go to www.bayer.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
This release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by Bayer management. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, develop-ment or performance of the company and the estimates given here. These factors include those discussed in Bayer’s public reports which are available on the Bayer website at www.bayer.com. The company assumes no liability whatsoever to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.

About the Innovation and Start-Up Center Biotechnology (IZB)
The company Fördergesellschaft IZB mbH, founded in 1995, is the operating company of the In-novation and Start-Up Centers Biotechnology in Planegg-Martinsried and Freising-Weihen-stephan, and has developed into one of the top ten renowned biotechnology centers in the world. More than 50 biotech companies with more than 600 employees are currently located on an area covering 26,000 m2. This is where work focuses on developing drugs against the most severe diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer’s disease and various autoimmune diseases –and there are already many successes. At the IZB Freising-Weihenstephan – 15 minutes from the airport – sci-entists are working on developments in the field of life sciences. An essential criterion for the suc-cess of the IZBs is the proximity to top research on the Martinsried / Grosshadern Campus. The new infrastructure measures, such as the Faculty Club G2B (Gateway to Biotech), the IZB Resi-dence CAMPUS AT HOME, the Chemistry College Elhardt, the two kindergartens Bio Kids and Bio Kids2, as well as the two restaurants SEVEN AND MORE and Café Freshmaker, have become decisive location factors. Successful companies that have emerged from the IZB include, for ex-ample, Medigene AG, Morphosys AG, Micromet GmbH (now Amgen AG), Octopharma GmbH and Corimmun (today Janssen-Cilag). More information at www.izb-online.de

Contact

adivo GmbH
Dr. Kathrin Ladetzki-Baehs
phone +49 (0)89 588088471
Email: tev.ovida@ofni

Bayer Animal Health GmbH
Christine Wunderlich
phone +49 (0)2173 385061
Email: moc.reyab@1hcilrednuw.enitsirhC

Press contact as well as enquiries about pictures and film material IZB
Susanne Simon
Head of Public Relations
Fördergesellschaft IZB mbH, Innovation- and Start-Up Center Biotechnology
Am Klopferspitz 19
82152 Planegg-Martinsried
Tel.: +49 (0)89 5527948-17
Fax: +49 (0)89 5527948-29
Mobil: +49 (0)172 8666093
E-Mail: ed.enilno-bzi@esserp
Website: www.izb-online.de