Timothy Shannon, M.D., president and CEO of CuraGen, commented, "CuraGen's Board of Directors considered a range of strategic alternatives to increase shareholder value and concluded that this transaction represents the best opportunity for our shareholders. We believe Celldex's immunotherapy expertise and platform technology provide an excellent fit for our antibody portfolio, industry collaborations, technological assets and intellectual property. The deal also offers CuraGen investors reduced risk via ownership of a broader portfolio, while still retaining upside potential of CR011 in the combined company."

CR011, currently in Phase 2 studies, is an antibody-drug conjugate that targets GPNMB, a protein that is highly expressed in metastatic breast cancer and melanoma. CR011 has shown promising early evidence of anti-tumor activity, including objective tumor responses, in patients with breast cancer and unresectable stage III and IV melanoma. CuraGen Corporation has a portfolio of 11 fully-owned, human antibodies that the Company selected, optimized and advanced during its collaboration with Abgenix (acquired by Amgen).

Dr. Shannon will join the Celldex board of directors. It has not been announced yet whether any of the combined company's operations will be conducted in Connecticut.

But in any case, companies and operations that emerged from CuraGen are still active in the state, a testament to its contribution to Connecticut bioscience, Paul Pescatello, president and CEO of CURE, told the Hartford Courant.

"A lot of things have come out of CuraGen over the years," Pescatello said, "including 454 Life Sciences, also of Branford and now owned by Roche, as well as RainDance Technologies."

Anthony Marucci, president and CEO of Celldex, stated, "The CuraGen acquisition fulfills a major initiative to identify, acquire and integrate value-creating, synergistic assets to the Celldex precision targeted immunotherapy platform and enhances Celldex's antibody-based technology pipeline. In addition, this acquisition further strengthens Celldex's intellectual property estate and balance sheet, providing cash resources to advance our clinical development programs into 2012."

Celldex Therapeutics is discovering and developing innovative targeted immunotherapeutics for the treatment of cancer, infectious and inflammatory diseases. The Company's focus is on the use of tumor-specific targets and human monoclonal antibodies to precisely deliver therapeutic agents through their novel targeted immunization approach. Celldex's deep pipeline consists of product candidates in varying stages of development, with lead candidate CDX-110, partnered with Pfizer, currently undergoing evaluation in a Phase 2 clinical trial in newly diagnosed glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) and CDX-1307, currently enrolling in a Phase 1 study in epithelial tumors. In addition, the Company recently completed the successful preclinical development of CDX-1401, a candidate for study in multiple solid tumors.