September 15 - Morphotek Inc. has been awarded a $6.3 million challenge grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to apply its proprietary morphogenics technology to develop anti-biowarfare therapies, the company said today.

For the grant, sponsored by the Department of the Army, U.S. Army Research Office, Morphotek will use its proprietary morphogenics technology to develop cell lines suitable for the scaleable manufacture of the biologic-based therapies.

As part of this award Morphotek will develop optimized manufacturing cell systems for DARPA that will enable DARPA to rapidly produce large quantities of biologic therapeutics in response to mass pathogen exposure, as well as for generating a drug stockpile.

"We are pleased to have received this award to employ our technologies to support our national defense initiatives," said Nicholas C. Nicolaides, Ph.D., Morphotek's president and chief executive officer.

"Cell lines capable of generating large quantities of product at scale are crucial for being able to respond to product demands within a narrow timeframe. Morphotek has successfully developed optimized cell lines and products for our collaborators and has employed morphogenics to build an exciting internal product pipeline. We look forward to continued success in developing optimized systems to support DARPA's biodefense initiatives," Nicolaides said.

Morphotek has formed collaborations that implement its proprietary technology with leading academic and corporate biomedical organizations including Abgenix, Amgen, Centocor, GlaxoSmithKline, the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, the National Cancer Institute, Novo Nordisk, Protein Design Labs, Tanox, the Wistar Institute, Wyeth and the United States military.