Patrys Ltd (ASX:PAB)’s wholly-owned subsidiary Nucleus Therapeutics Pty Ltd has received a $3.35 million R&D Tax Incentive Refund for the 2021/2022 financial year.
The therapeutic antibody development company sees the refund as strong support from the Australian Government. The Research & Development (R&D) Tax Incentive helps companies innovate and grow by providing a tax offset of up to 43.5% (refundable) for eligible research and development.
Refund allows PAB to advance research
Patrys CEO and MD Dr James Campbell said: “We appreciate and are extremely grateful for the strong support that the Australian Federal Government provides to the Australian biotech industry through the R&D Tax Incentive Refund.
“For Patrys, this current rebate, in combination with our existing cash balance, has enabled the company to confidently continue advancing PAT-DX1 towards the clinic in the second half of 2023 despite challenging conditions in both the industry and capital markets.”
About PAB
Patrys is focused on the development of its deoxymab platform of cell-penetrating antibodies as therapies for a range of different cancers.
The company’s deoxymab platform is based on the deoxymab 3E10 antibody that was first identified as an autoantibody in a mouse model of the human disease systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
While most antibodies bind to cell surface markers, deoxymab 3E10 penetrates into the cell nuclei and binds directly to DNA where it inhibits DNA repair processes.
Cancer cells often have high levels of mutations and underlying deficiencies in the DNA repair mechanisms. For these reasons, the additional inhibition of the DNA repair processes by deoxymab 3E10 can kill cancer cells but appears to have little impact on normal cells.
As a single agent, deoxymab 3E10 has been shown to significantly enhance the efficacy of both chemo- and radiotherapies.
Further, deoxymab 3E10 can be conjugated to nanoparticles to target delivery of chemotherapeutics and imaging agents to tumours.
Patrys has developed two humanised forms of deoxymab 3E10, both of which have improved activity over the original deoxymab 3E10 antibody. PAT-DX1 is a dimer (two joined subunits) of the short chain from the binding domain of deoxymab 3E10, while PAT-DX3 is a full-sized IgG antibody.
In a range of pre-clinical studies, PAT-DX1 has shown significant ability to kill cancer cells in cell models, human tumour explants, xenograft and orthotopic models.
PAT-DX1 is tumour-agnostic, meaning that it can target many different tumour types in the body, regardless of specific tumour antigens.
Patrys believes that PAT- DX1 may have application across a wide range of cancers including gliomas, melanomas, prostate, breast, pancreatic and ovarian cancers.