AAPS honors Morphotek with 2012 Excellence in Ligand Binding Assays Award

Morphotek®, Inc., a subsidiary of Eisai Inc., announced today that The American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) has awarded its 2012 Excellence in Ligand Binding Assays Award to the Bioanalytical Development group from Morphotek for their abstract, "Development and Validation of a Pharmacokinetic Assay on the Gyrolab Platform for Use in Phase II/III Clinical Studies." The award was presented at the AAPS 2012 National Biotechnology Conference held May 21-23 in San Diego.

The award, which is given annually, is designed to promote the science and technology of ligand binding assays through recognition of individuals who have made the most outstanding contributions in ligand binding assays within the pharmaceutical sciences, as judged by a committee of scientific peers.  In a letter to Jay Wustner, Associate Director of Morphotek's Bioanalytical Development Department, Dr. David Mitchell, President of the AAPS, states, "There was keen competition for this award, as there were many very good abstracts considered this year. Your work, as judged by the selection committee, was deemed the most outstanding."

The abstract focused on the development and use of a novel semi-automated assay system to efficiently and accurately measure the levels of Morphotek's investigational monoclonal antibody drug, farletuzumab, in large-scale, late-phase clinical studies. This ligand binding assay format utilized the Gyrolab instrument platform coupled with a high-throughput testing strategy requiring minimal resources and analysis time. Using this system, the Bioanalytical team at Morphotek was able to perform over 300 assay runs that generated more than 14,000 sample values in approximately six months.

"We are extremely pleased to receive this notable award and sincerely appreciate the recognition that the Morphotek team received from Dr. Mitchell and the entire AAPS selection committee," said Morphotek's Jay Wustner.  "This award reinforces Morphotek's commitment to innovation and leadership, not only in the specific realm of bioanalytical assay development, but also in the broader spectrum of applied biotechnology for clinical drug development and our human health care mission."