Platform collecting

Oxford Genome Sciences Ltd. has done two deals in the last few months that should enable it to realize management's vision of transitioning from a biomarker services business into a therapeutics company by leveraging targets from its proteomics database. Last week's deal to develop cancer antibodies with Amgen Inc. gives the U.K. company access to its second antibody platform.

Oxford Genome (Abingdon, U.K.) was founded in 2003 when CEO Christian Rohlff and colleagues acquired assets from Oxford GlycoSciences plc, which was acquired by Celltech Group plc, now part of UCB Group (Euronext:UCB, Brussels, Belgium). One of these assets resulted in the Oxford Genome Anatomy Project (OGAP), a proteomics database that covers more than 15,000 proteins. ...