Just days after agreeing to acquire 454 Life Sciences, a subsidiary of CuraGen Corp which focuses on high-throughput DNA sequencing for $154.9 million, Switzerland’s Roche has gone shopping again and bought Therapeutic Human Polyclonals, which specialises in “innovative antibody research”.
THP is a privately-owned biotechnology company based in California and Germany and is being acquired for $56.5 million. Jonathan Knowles, head of global research at Roche said that “THP and its employees will add cutting-edge capabilities and represent an excellent strategic fit with our own R&D organization,” noting that the new unit will be fully integrated into the Roche Pharma Center of Excellence for Protein Research in Penzberg, Germany.
The Swiss drugs giant concluded by noting that THP has developed a “unique transgenic mammalian platform to create human antibodies” which will enable the generation of “both monoclonal and polyclonal antibody therapeutics with enhanced efficacy.”
