Scottsdale - Mayo Clinic has finalized an agreement with InNexus Biotechnology, Inc., a publicly held Vancouver, British Columbia, biotech firm, to make the company's U.S. headquarters at Mayo's Scottsdale campus, which has increasingly focused on research.

The 20,000-square-foot facility in Scottsdale will provide 36 jobs in management and research, with a capacity for 50.

 

The drug-development firm plans to move in March into the Mayo Clinic Collaborative Research Building, a 110,000-square-foot facility that has housed projects by Mayo's research partners, including the Translational Genomics Institute.

Such collaborations will speed improved health care to patients, said Dr. Victor Trastek, chief exectives of the Mayo Clinic in Arizona.

 

InNexus focuses on developing antibody-based drugs derived from teh body's immune defenses.

 

Antibody-based drugs require less time and funding to develop and tend to obtain government approvals for patients use mroe quickly than most drugs do, said Jeff Morhet, chief of operations for InNexus.

 

Morhet said developing an antibody procedure on average takes six to eight years.

 

"InNexus research is currently directed at treatments for cancer, cardiovascular disease and immune disorders," Morhet said.