Austrian antibody start-up heads to Cambridge - News - Life Sciences - Business Weekly

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Austrian antibody start-up heads to Cambridge

Written by Ben Fountain
Wednesday, 12 March 2008
Gottfried Himmler, CEO of f-star Austrian antibody engineering start-up, f-Star plans to open a Cambridge research facility next month. The new facility will be located at the Babraham Research Campus, home to a number of up-and-coming biotechs. f-Star said it was attracted to Cambridge, at least in part, by the presence of the Medical Research Council's Laboratory of Molecular Biology (LMB), "the major centre for antibody engineering in Europe." LMB has spun out two world leaders in antibody technology, in the form of Cambridge Antibody Technology (now MedImmune) and Domantis, acquired by GSK in late 2006. f-Star's second research site will start operations on April 15. According to the company, the Cambridge group will mainly be responsible for lead generation based on the company's Modular Antibody Technology as well as "research related to the conduct of collaborative studies between f-star and its pharma and biotech partners." The company said its Cambridge site will start with a "small group of highly experienced researchers in the field." The research group will be headed by Lutz Riechmann, a senior researcher with over 20 years of experience in antibody research in Sir Gregory Winter's group at the LMB. "We are excited to open up a lab at the epicenter of Europe's antibody research and development community and to utilize the large pool of talent and experience concentrated in the Cambridge area," said Gottfried Himmler, CEO of f-star. f-star was founded in 2006. Seed-financed by Austrian government agencies and Atlas Venture, the company recently closed a Series A financing round with Aescap Venture, Atlas Venture and Novo A/S, raising £9.96m (EUR 13.0m)in total so far. f-star has 18 employees at its headquarters in Vienna. US giant Genzyme recently announced that Cambridge's antibody expertise was the driving force behind the planned expansion of its research operations in the city. Set as favorite Bookmark Email This Hits: 508 Trackback(0) TrackBack URI for this entry Comments (0) Subscribe to this comment's feed Show/Hide comments Write comment Show/Hide comment form This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.