DSM Venturing, the corporate venturing unit of Royal DSM N.V., today announced that it has made an equity investment in the Dutch company IQ Therapeutics B.V. The company develops antibody based products for biodefense and for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. DSM Venturing will hold a significant minority share in IQ Therapeutics.

The investment underlines DSM’s position as a partner of choice for the pharma industry and expands the already existing relationship between both companies. IQ Therapeutics is a PER.C6® License Holder with DSM Biologics and Crucell for the production of its monoclonal antibodies.

In addition to the PER.C6® license and the new equity investment, IQ Therapeutics and DSM Biologics have a manufacturing agreement in place for process development, pilot manufacturing and GMP manufacturing of IQ Therapeutics’ anti-anthrax antibody product. This product has been developed with IQ Therapeutics’ proprietary technology for the generation of fully human antibodies from the blood of vaccinated donors.

The investment in IQ Therapeutics fits in DSM’s strategy to fortify its presence in the biopharmaceutical market. This is the fastest growing market segment of the pharmaceutical market and is expected to more than triple in the next ten years.

Karen King, President DSM Biologics: “We believe the anti-anthrax product has great potential. The PER.C6® human cell line and our manufacturing services have provided IQ Therapeutics with a turn-key biologic manufacturing solution which reduces cost, risk and time to market. The combination with IQ Therapeutics’ unique new anti-anthrax therapeutic makes this a great business opportunity.”

IQ Therapeutics’ CEO Roland G. Lageveen: “This strategic partnership will increase the visibility of IQ Therapeutics and its technology in the market and will enable the development of our lead product to registration. Moreover, the combination of IQ’s antibody technology with DSM Biologics’ expertise in process development and manufacturing will significantly speed up the development of our antibody-based product pipeline ”.

This investment brings the total number of current company participations of DSM Venturing to 21. Venturing forms an integral part of DSM’s open innovation approach, focused on teaming up with innovative players all over the world. The company has earmarked up to EUR 200 million for venturing investments until 2012.

DSM Venturing
DSM Venturing is an active investor in emerging companies and Venture Capital Funds in DSM’s strategic growth fields Nutrition, Pharma and Performance Materials. DSM Venturing's mission is to explore emerging markets and technologies in these strategic growth fields in order to enhance DSM's product portfolio and create value. DSM Venturing also plays an active role in the development of several new DSM business opportunities in the so-called emerging business areas Biomedical, Industrial (White) Biotechnology, Specialty Packaging and Personalized Nutrition. For more information about DSM Venturing see www.dsm venturing.com.

IQ Therapeutics
IQ Therapeutics BV is a human antibody technology company based in Groningen, The Netherlands. Its mission is to contribute to human healthcare through the development and worldwide commercialization of its Instant Immunity™ for therapeutic applications in biodefense, infectious diseases and oncology. The company is applying its Cloning the Human Response™ technology for its pipeline and third parties' to generate and develop fully human antibodies from immunized or vaccinated donors for the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases. IQ Therapeutics is a spin-out of the life science company IQ Corporation BV with key investors NV NOM and Zernike Seed Fund. For more information about IQ Therapeutics see www.iqtherapeutics.nl .