Affimed joins the Molecular Imaging Technology Initiative

02-11-2009: Affimed Therapeutics AG announced the start of a collaboration project with Bayer Schering Pharma AG, the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) and other partners within the Molecular Imaging Technology Initiative launched by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (“BMBF”). Affimed will receive a funded grant totaling more than €550.000 to carry out its part of the project.

BMBF supports the Molecular Imaging Technology Initiative for the development of new diagnostic methods and imaging technologies for clinical use and pharmaceutical applications.

Within this collaboration, Affimed will identify and isolate new molecules binding to membrane-associated targets on tumour tissues, using its highly diverse human antibody libraries. The optimised binding molecules in their final format will be further characterized in vitro by the other above mentioned collaboration partners. The main goal is to find new diagnostic tracer molecules for use in imaging technologies, but identified molecules could also be used for in vitro diagnostic purposes or the development of new pharmaceutical therapeutics.