RECORDS OF SUCCESS

MRC’s IP and expertise have been acquired by many companies including AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT), Abbot, Genzyme, GlaxoSmithKline, Medimmune, Merck Co. Inc., Merck KGaA, Pfizer and Roche, to name but a few.

MRC has participated in the creation of 17 start-ups, including two of the UK’s largest and most successful biotechnology companies: UCB-Celltech and CAT started out as companies based on MRC intellectual property.

MRC Technology has been instrumental in commercial deals leading to the MRC receiving significant revenue streams. This extra income has been re-invested in healthcare research. Most notably in 2005 we negotiated a royalty buy out of US$265m, one of the biggest ever deals to arise out of breakthroughs by British scientists. This transaction involved the drug, Humira ®, created using patented technology derived from research at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge and The Scripps Research Institute in California. Total licensing income generated to the end of 2005 stands at US$357m/GBP£207m.

To add to this, we continue to strengthen the IP available to you through such devices as our Development Gap scheme, through which funding is made available to MRC establishments for commercially oriented basic research. This helps us provide proof of concept data, particularly to strengthen patents during the priority year.

Some of the world’s most innovative healthcare products have been generated from MRC technologies, for example:

Actemra ®
Avastin ®
Campath ®
Herceptin ®
Humira ®
Mylotarg ®
Raptiva ®
Synagis ®
Tsyabri ®
Zenapax ®.