MorphoSys Issued US Patent for HuCAL® Antibody Library

Press Release
Martinsried/Munich, October 17, 2001
MorphoSys Issued US Patent for HuCAL ® Antibody Library
MorphoSys AG (Neuer Markt: MOR), the Munich-based biotechnology company,
announced today that the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office has granted the Company a
new patent covering it’s Human Combinatorial Antibody Library (HuCAL ® ). The U.S.
patent (US 6,300,064), entitled “Protein/(poly)peptide libraries” covers methods for the
construction of synthetic, fully modular human antibody libraries based on in silico
consensus sequences. The application on which the patent is based was submitted to
the U.S. Patent Office in 1998. A related HuCAL ® patent was issued in Australia in the
year 2000, and further patent applications are currently pending in Canada, Europe and
Japan.
“The HuCAL ® patent family sits at the core of our technologies and the grant of this
patent significantly strengthens our patent portfolio. Moreover, the speed in which the
U.S. patent office granted our patent application points to the clear and undisputed
novelty and inventiveness of the HuCAL ® technology”, commented Dr. Thomas von
Rueden, Chief Scientific Officer of MorphoSys AG.
Recently another patent was granted to MorphoSys in the U.S. (US 6,294,353), entitled
“Targeted hetero-association of recombinant proteins to multi-functional complexes”,
further strengthening MorphoSys' intellectual property portfolio. The patent covers
multifunctional protein complexes formed by certain hetero-associating domains.
To-date, MorphoSys has four patents granted and more than 40 applications pending
worldwide. The patents and pending applications cover a variety of different
technologies, including antibody libraries, screening methods such as the EST and
CysDisplay TM technologies, certain antibody fragment formats, and specific antibodies.
MorphoSys develops and applies innovative technologies for the production of synthetic
antibodies, which accelerate drug discovery and target characterization. Founded in
1992, the Company's proprietary Human Combinatorial Antibody Library (HuCAL ® )
technology is used by researchers worldwide for human antibody generation. The
Company currently has licensing and research collaborations with Bayer AG (Berkeley,
California/USA), Biogen Inc. (Cambridge, Massachusetts/USA), Centocor Inc. (Malvern,
Pennsylvania/USA), DuPont Pharmaceuticals Inc. (Wilmington, Delaware/USA), Eos
Biotechnology Inc. (San Francisco, California/USA), GPC Biotech AG (Munich/Germany),
Hoffmann-La Roche AG (Basel/Switzerland), ImmunoGen Inc. (Cambridge,
Massachusetts/USA), Millennium Inc. (Cambridge, Mass/USA), Oridis Biomed GmbH
(Graz/Austria) and ProChon Biotech Ltd. (Rehovot/Israel). For further information please
visit the corporate website at: http://www.morphosys.com/.

Statements included in this press release which are not historical in nature are intended
to be, and are hereby identified as, “forward-looking statements” for purposes of the
safe harbour provided by Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as
amended by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking
statements may be identified by words including “anticipates”, “believes”, “intends”,
“estimates”, “expects” and similar expressions. The company cautions readers that
forward-looking statements, including without limitation those relating to the company’s
future operations and business prospects, are subject to certain risks and uncertainties
that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forwardlooking
statements. Factors that may affect future operations and business prospects
include, but are not limited to, clinical and scientific results and developments concerning
corporate collaborations and the company’s proprietary rights and other factors
described in the prospectus relating to the company’s recent public offering.
For more information, please contact MorphoSys:
Dave Lemus; Chief Financial Officer
Tel: +49 (0) 89 / 899 27-439
Fax: +49 (0) 89 / 899 27-5309
Investors@morphosys.com