ST. LOUIS and HASSELT, Belgium, September 20, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Monsanto Company and Complix NV today announced they have entered into a collaboration agreement to evaluate and develop Complix's proprietary Alphabody® protein technology in the field of agriculture.

Complix is a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of its Alphabody® technology platform. Alphabodies are a unique class of protein therapeutics that are potentially active against a broad range of disease targets, including intracellular targets. Alphabodies are small single chain alpha-helical proteins that are designed by computer modelling, but are inspired by naturally existing protein structures. This collaboration represents the first application of Complix's Alphabody® technology in agriculture.

"Complix's expertise in protein targeting technology offers a novel platform to further enhance our trait development capabilities," said Bob Reiter, Monsanto's Vice President of Biotechnology. "We believe this technology offers great promise and could contribute to development of new traits to protect plants from pests and diseases. We are pleased to work with Complix to develop this promising technology in a way that might deliver on-farm benefits to our grower customers."

Under the terms of the agreement, Complix will grant Monsanto worldwide exclusive rights to access Complix's Alphabody® platform technology for use in plant agriculture. Complix retains the exclusive rights on any discoveries made under this collaboration for use outside the field of plant agriculture. The agreement also includes options to expand the collaboration across multiple applications within plant agriculture. Further terms were not disclosed.

"We are delighted to have concluded this agreement with Monsanto, a leading agricultural company with a strong track record of delivering innovations to the marketplace," said Mark Vaeck, Chief Executive Officer of Complix NV. "By working with Monsanto, our partner of choice for this space, I am confident that we will be able to apply our Alphabody platform to address some of the most important challenges facing agriculture today and tomorrow. This strategic alliance, will also enable us to create significant value for our shareholders as it will contribute to further strengthening and expanding our Alphabody platform and help Complix to establish its leadership position in the field of cross-over therapeutics."

About Monsanto Company

Monsanto Company is a leading global provider of technology-based solutions and agricultural products that improve farm productivity and food quality. Monsanto remains focused on enabling both small-holder and large-scale farmers to produce more from their land while conserving more of our world's natural resources such as water and energy. To learn more about our business and our commitments, please visit: http://www.monsanto.com.  Follow our business on Twitter® at http://www.twitter.com/MonsantoCo, on the company blog, Beyond the Rows at http://www.monsantoblog.com, or subscribe to our News Release RSS Feed.

About Complix NV

Complix discovers and develops Alphabodies, a novel and proprietary class of biopharmaceuticals that delivers significant advantages over current protein therapeutic approaches. Alphabodies comprise an alpha-helical coiled coil structure, which makes them ideal protein scaffolds for therapeutic applications as they combine the specificity of antibodies with small molecule-like properties. Alphabodies' most important advantage is their ability to address currently undruggable extracellular and, in particular, intracellular targets.

Complix is developing cell penetrating Alphabodies (CPABs) that have the potential to modulate intracellular PPIs, and has generated data demonstrating that CPABs are able to enter cells, bind to disease targets and can generate biological effects at low concentrations. CPABs have been designed to tackle the significant proportion of all known human disease targets that are located inside cells and cannot be addressed by either small chemical drugs or biologics. These targets belong to the most interesting class of potential drug targets, namely intracellular protein-protein interactions (PPIs), which are involved in important disease processes, such as those causing cancer, CNS, inflammation or metabolic diseases.

Alphabodies' unique design, which has been invented by the Complix founders, means that the Company has a unique freedom-to-operate position. Complix has already established a strong intellectual property position for its Alphabody platform through the filing of several broad patent applications.

Complix´s current R&D focus is on the development of novel Alphabody-based therapies for inflammation/autoimmunity and cancer.

Complix is headquartered in Hasselt (Belgium) in the Life Sciences incubator BioVille, and has research facilities in Ghent (Belgium) and in Luxembourg. The Company has a fully owned subsidiary in Luxembourg and a strategic alliance with the public research institute CRP-Santé. For further information, please visit http://www.complix.com.

Contacts
Complix NV
Dr. Mark Vaeck, CEO
+32-9-261-69-40
mark.vaeck@complix.com

SOURCE Complix