(BW Healthwire)–November 30, 1998—Xencor Inc. announced the execution of a worldwide, exclusive licensing agreement with the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for key enabling technology including know-how and patents for Protein Design Automation (PDA). PDA utilizes breakthrough computational and protein engineering techniques developed at Caltech, one of the world’s premier scientific research institutions. According to Dr. Bassil Dahiyat, President and CEO, Xencor, “This advances our relationship with Caltech, and facilitates the commercial and scientific development of PDA as a design tool for biotechnology products.“ PDA generates novel protein variants that maintain target functions but with improved physico-chemical properties. Xencor, founded in August 1997, has dedicated research facilities which include a molecular biology laboratory and a state-of the art computational lab with a parallel supercomputer from Silicon Graphics/Cray Research. PDA results were published in Science last year, as well as Nature Structural Biology in June of this year. For more information about the company, visit the web site at www.xencor.com.