Select Vaccines licenses hepatitis E antibodies

Melbourne's Select Vaccines (ASX:SLT) announced today it has licensed serologicals company Upstate USA to market and distribute Select's five proprietary monoclonal antibodies to hepatitis E virus for research purposes.

The company said the terms of the agreement were confidential, but include a sign-on free and ongoing royalty payments.

Select's MD, Dr Martin Soust, said his company is looking forward to developing new opportunities to grow both companies.

"Hepatitis E is a serious problem in developing nations," said Soust. "It is one of two forms of enteric hepatitis caused by fecal contamination of water."

Soust says in Egypt almost half the population is infected with hepatitis E.

It does not cause chronic infection, but infection in the third trimester of pregnancy causes a twenty five per cent mortality rate in the mothers.

He said Upstate was very highly regarded in its field, which includes cell-signalling products, and services for biomedical research and drug discovery.

Select's monoclonal antibodies would be a valuable addition to Upstate's extensive portfolio of antibodies, enzymes and assay kits. Upstate expected to begin marketing the HEV monoclonals in the second half of this year, through its affiliate, Chemicon International.

Select has previously licensed a hepatitis E diagnostic kit to Singapore company Genelabs.