Per the agreement, the technology and services provider Abzena will humanize monoclonal antibodies using its Composite Human Antibody technology (CHA). CHA combines humanization and deimmunisation technologies to create therapeutic antibodies without CD4+ T cell epitopes.
John Burt CEO of Abzena told us, “The licensing agreement arises through Tmunity’s access to Abzena’s composite human antibody technology to create humanized CAR [Chimeric Antigen Receptor] sequences.”
Abzena will be paid milestone payments if any products containing the humanized antibody sequences reach investigational new drug (IND) acceptance.
CAR-T therapy is a form of precision medicine that uses an individual’s genetically modified cells as a way of killing cancer cells. It has been developed for the treatment of hematological cancers.
“The Composite Human Antibody Technology removes putative T cell epitope sequences from antibody sequences to reduce the risk of immunogenicity of these products on administration to patients,” said Burt.
The license agreement also includes a developability assessment for Tumunity to assess any sequence liabilities that would impact the product and EpiScreen, Abzena’s ex-vivo immunogenicity assessment platform.
