Company News

ESBATech AG, a leading developer of antibody fragment therapeutics, today announced the initiation of Phase I clinical development of the company’s lead product development candidate, ESBA105, in ophthalmology. This Phase I study is designed to evaluate the safety, tolerability and pharmacokinetic profile of ESBA105, when delivered topically via eye drops in healthy volunteers. The study is being conducted as a single and repeated dose escalation study in Switzerland. ESBA105 is a single-chain antibody fragment directed against TNFα. It is being developed initially for ophthalmic indications.

ESBATech AG, a leading developer of antibody fragment therapeutics, today announced that it has achieved high concentrations of its antibody fragments in all segments of the eye with topical delivery via eye drops. These data were confirmed in several independent preclinical in vivo tests. Anticipated therapeutic concentrations of ESBATech’s antibody fragments were observed in the anterior chamber (front of the eye) and in the posterior segments (back of the eye) including vitreous humour, retina, and choroid. ESBATech’s lead antibody fragment ESBA105 is a TNFα antagonist that is scheduled to enter clinical development later in 2008.

ESBATech AG today announced the appointment of Martin Gertsch to the position of Chief Financial Officer. Martin has more than twenty years of international financial and operational experience in fast growing companies, most recently in the field of medical technology. As Chief Financial Officer, he will be responsible for working with the senior management team on overseeing the company’s growth, from both a financial and operational perspective.

The New Company Will Focus on Novel, Targeted Small Molecule Cancer Therapeutics.
ESBATech AG today announced the spin-out of its small molecule inhibitor programs to form a new company, Oncalis AG.
Oncalis is currently financed by ESBATech’s Series A investors, including Novartis Venture Fund, BioMedinvest and VI Partners. The spin-out transaction includes the transfer of all small molecule related assets, including a yeast-cell based, high-throughput screening platform for receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), and a number of specific and potent kinase inhibitors.

Financing Round Led by Syndicate of New Investors in US and Europe.
ESBATech AG, a Zurich-based biotechnology company developing antibody-fragment therapeutics, today announced the closing of its Series B financing round. The CHF 50M (USD 41M, EURO 32M) financing round was led by a global syndicate of new investors representing the US and Europe, including SV Life Sciences (SVLS), Clarus Ventures, HBM BioVentures and HBM BioCapital. Series A investors Novartis Venture Fund, BioMedinvest and VI Partners also participated in this round.

ESBATech AG today announced the appointment of James J. Egan to the position of Chief Business Officer. Jamie has more than 25 years of experience in legal, mergers and acquisitions and business development in the pharmaceutical industry. He has participated in the negotiation of more than 25 major agreements with a multi-billion dollar aggregate commercial value. At ESBATech, Jamie will be responsible for directing the company's strategic development and planning, including licensing agreements, joint ventures, strategic alliances and acquisitions.

ESBATech announced today that it has signed a collaboration agreement with Novartis in the field of drug discovery for receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitors. Under the non-exclusive license Novartis gains access to ESBATech’s cellular HTS technology to identify inhibitors of receptor tyrosine kinases, which are important drug targets in the field of oncology.

"The Life Sciences Prize 2004 was awarded to the company ESBATech AG in Zurich-Schlieren, Switzerland, which develops pharmaceutical products. The prize of CHF 10’000 stands under the patronage of Bio Valley Basel, and is awarded to a young Swiss company from the pharma and medical sector."

ESBATech AG announced today that the European Patent Office granted ESBATech’s patent for screening of antibody fragments. The novel technology was already very successfully applied at ESBATech and identified highly stable antibody fragments of fully human origin. Based on this granted technology, ESBATech has generated and developed therapeutic antibody fragments, which are currently in preclinical research in the field of inflammatory diseases, Alzheimer’s disease and oncology.

ESBATech is pleased to announce the initiation of a license and research collaboration agreement with Viventia Biotech Inc. Toronto, Canada. ESBATech will apply its antibody technology and know-how to enhance the characteristics of antibodies identified by Viventia for the development of therapeutics in the field of oncology.

ESBATech AG announces an agreement with Prof. Amedeo Caflisch from the University of Zurich for in silico screening of small molecule libraries for ESBATech’s drug discovery targets.
Using target specific small molecule libraries that have been pre-selected in this manner will give ESBATech a head start in the selection of highly effective compounds and a much higher hit rate in the screening process, than would be achieved using random and diverse libraries. In contrast to other experimental approaches the functional, cell-based assays allow the immediate validation in a physiological environment, demonstrating cell-compatibility, specificity and efficiency in one step.

Zurich, Switzerland and Munich, Germany – ESBATech AG and Micromet AG entered into an intellectual property licence agreement, under which ESBATech receives a world-wide, non-exclusive license to Micromet’s and Enzon’s combined single-chain antibody (SCA) patents for use in ESBATech’s Immuna Technology, an SCA-based platform for the identification of SCAs with superior stability and expression properties. ESBATech also has the option to extend the scope of the license to use single-chain antibodies in the development of therapeutics.

In addition, ESBATech grants Micromet an option to access ESBATech’s proprietary fully human single-chain antibody frameworks. In case of the exercise of the option by Micromet, ESBATech is eligible for upfront and royalty payments.

ESBATech announced the post closing of the second financing round with Innoventure Capital AG (Credit Suisse) and Venture Incubator AG.
While the new investors have performed their own due diligence on the Company, the supplemental round was closed at the previously agreed terms of the second financing round of May this year.
This closing adds a further CHF 4 Mio to ESBATech's cash position and increases the total amount of money raised during the second financing round to CHF 14.5 Mio (USD 10 Mio, Euro 10 Mio).
Other investors in this round included Lombard Odier Darier Hentsch & Cie Immunology Fund as the lead investor, Novartis Venture Fund, sole investor in ESBATech's first financing, HBM BioVentures, BSI New Biomedical Frontier, Difasa Holding, and Peter Ohnemus.
The closing of this round secures working capital of the Company until at least middle of 2004.

Cytos Biotechnology, ESBATech AG, Prionics and The Genetics Company today jointly opened a major new center for the Swiss biotechnology industry.
The opening of the Biotech Center Zurich has led to the creation of more than 200 highly skilled new jobs in the Zurich area.
On the occasion of the inauguration, leading representatives from science, business and politics, including Pascal Couchepin, Swiss Minister for Public Economy, shared their views on the future of the biotechnology industry and medicine at a symposium held at the new center.
Located in Schlieren, the Biotech Center Zurich will further develop synergies between Zurich's growing number of biotechnology companies and the city's academic research centers.

ESBATech installed a liquid handling TECAN laboratory robot with the necessary specifications to provide for the Company's needs in high throughput screening of small compound libraries using its proprietary cell-based assays.
This presents a major step forward and enhances ESBATech's ability to exploit the functional assays for the selection of compounds with a specific effect on the drug target.

ESBATech announced the closing of the second financing round.
The round of a total of CHF 10.5 million (USD 6.6 million, EUR 7.3 million) was led by the Immunology Fund of Lombard Odier & Cie. Novartis Venture Fund, sole investor of ESBATech's first financing round also continued its commitment to the Company.
Other investors include HBM BioVentures, BSI New Biomedical Frontiers, Difasa holding, and Peter Ohnemus.The Company also announced today that Dr. Pedro Reiser joined the Board of Directors as new Chairman.
Among other executive positions in pharma companies Dr. Reiser was President and CEO of Novartis Pharma in Japan. He also holds advanced management degrees from INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France and Harvard Business School in Boston, USA. Dr. Reiser's outstanding international track record in the pharmaceutical industry provides extremely valuable experience to support ESBATech's development into a fully integrated drug discovery and development company.