Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co., a Japanese biotechnology and pharmaceutical company, announced Monday the creation of a new unit in the United States to develop and market monoclonal antibodies and other biological technologies and businesses.
Kyowa Hakko, the nation's largest fermented-chemical company, said BioWa Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary in Princeton, N.J., of Kyowa America Inc., is intended to tap the rapidly growing antibody therapeutic industry with antibody medicines.
BioWa President and chief executive officer Nobuo Hanai said BioWa, capitalizing on Kyowa Hakko's "potelligent" technology to boost the potency and efficacy of antibodies, will aim to forge strategic alliances with U.S. companies with cutting-edge antibody technologies and medicines.
"The U.S. not only represents the largest market for antibody medicine, but also is the ideal environment for efficiently and quickly commercializing new biotechnology," he said.
Kyowa Hakko said the potelligent technology -- the fruits of research into methods for enhancing antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity -- is a function of the human immune system, which uses natural killer cells, monocytes and other white blood cells to destroy cancer cells and other antigens.