Affitech enters cancer antibody deal
agreement for two promising new cancer-specific human antibodies
using its Cell-Based Antibody Selection technology (CBAS).
Affitech developed a method for the rapid identification of highly specific antibodies towards epitopes on whole living cells. This technology enables the generation of fully human antibodies recognising antigens in their proper "in vivo setup", (native and in the correct biological appearance).
Additional subtractive screening provides the possibility to search for cell type-/disease-specific cell surface markers. Both naive IgM-based as well as specific IgG-based antibody libraries can be used. An important in-built feature of the CBAS method is the possibility to identify previously unknown antigens plus specific antibodies recognising them.
CBAS is thus a "reverse-screening" approach for antibody-based target discovery, as opposed to the conventional "target first-antibody later" methods.
The development of CBAS allows Affitech to move beyond its original core phagemid antibody display focus and decrease the time needed to discover new antibody drugs and their cognate target antigens.
Commenting on the agreement, Dr Martin Welschof, chief executive officer of Affitech said: "CBAS has proven to be a robust screening platform and has generated an interesting pipeline of cancer specific human antibodies of which the first two are undergoing pre-clinical development."
"This is an important step towards Affitech's transformation into a therapeutic antibody provider with its own proprietary product pipeline," he added.
The deal between the company and the Research Foundation of the Norwegian Radium Hospital (NRH), accelerates Affitech's transformation from an antibody discovery specialist into a bona fide developer of antibody therapeutics.
Affitech have previously said that its primary strategy was to generate short-term revenue through customer-based projects and out-licensing of technology assets and early stage products, and in addition to build a proprietary product pipeline through collaborations and partnerships.
In November 2004, Affitech entered into a cross-licensing agreement with Dyax for phage display technologies involving Affitech's "Breitling" and Dyax's "Ladner" family of patents.
Likewise in June 2003, Viventia Biotech of Canada and Affitech entered into a research collaboration to identify novel antigens on various cancer cells and to select antibodies targeting those antigens for subsequent development as potential therapeutics
This deal followed almost immediately the agreement made with Peregrine Pharmaceuticals, whom agreed a collaboration with Affitiech on the production of human antibodies for Peregrine's Vascular Targeting Agent (VTA) and anti-angiogenesis programs
