Munich, Germany
January 12, 2012

NOMAD Bioscience GmbH, Munich, Germany (NOMAD) has entered into a series of agreements with Bayer Innovation GmbH, a Bayer AG subsidiary. The agreements include, among others, the purchase of Icon Genetics GmbH (ICON), Bayer Innovation's subsidiary, by NOMAD. NOMAD acquires all shares in ICON and ancillary assets, thereby taking over all of ICON's assets, liabilities and obligations, including personnel, patent portfolio and its GMP-certified manufacturing facility in Halle (Saale), Germany. The patent portfolio of ICON includes over 320 issued patents representing over 40 patent families, and it includes broad patent protection of the magnICON™ transient expression technology as well as a set of technologies for designer glycosylation. As a result, ICON will become a wholly owned subsidiary of NOMAD. In return, the Bayer group will receive royalties on future NOMAD products that were made with ICON patented technology, as well as other undisclosed considerations.

Prof. Dr. Yuri Gleba, CEO and founder of NOMAD, said: "The deal makes perfect sense for NOMAD from the business point of view, as it creates a company that is much better able to use its broadly enabling transient expression processes to address various markets: biopharmaceuticals - a segment which will continue to be serviced by ICON - and biomaterials as well as agronomic traits to be served by NOMAD."

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Plischke, member of the Board of Management of Bayer AG responsible for Innovation, Technology and Environment, stated: "Although we decided to focus our activities, we remain very positive about this technology. NOMAD, with Prof. Gleba's proven management and continuing participation of Bayer, is well positioned for further success".

Under the contract manufacturing agreement, NOMAD's subsidiary ICON will continue manufacturing the non-Hodgkin's lymphoma vaccines, thus allowing Bayer Innovation to continue its Phase I clinical trials. The financial aspects of the deal have not been disclosed.

About NOMAD:
NOMAD is a private biotechnology company developing agronomic traits and plant-made biomaterials that address critical unmet needs. NOMAD's plant-based transient protein expression technologies are licensed to several companies for a broad range of products. NOMAD's proprietary technologies further improve the upstream part of the manufacturing process, but they also provide for novel downstream solutions that together with the in-licensed upstream components result in a fully integrated manufacturing process for most of NOMAD's intended products. NOMAD's agronomic trait pipeline is being developed jointly with a major partner. NOMAD's biomaterial pipeline consists of several selected product candidates, including plant-made cellulase enzymes (expected impact: up to 30 percent lower manufacturing cost of bioethanol), and antimicrobial proteins, including colicins, lysins and bacteriocins (unmet needs in food safety and animal health).

The founder and CEO of NOMAD is Prof. Dr. Yuri Gleba. Prior to founding NOMAD in 2008, Dr. Gleba co-founded two other biotech companies, Icon Genetics (Germany, USA) and Phytomedics (USA). He has been the CEO/Managing Director of Icon Genetics since its inception in 1999 and brought it to a successful exit in 2006 by selling the company to Bayer.  

Website: http://nomadbioscience.com/

Published: January 12, 2012