Avacta Group Plc (LON:AVCT) said two unnamed but “leading” US biotech companies have separately taken exclusive rights to Affimer reagents for research and development use to support their respective drug development programmes.
This followed technical evaluations of the technology. Commercial terms were not disclosed.
Affimers are small, engineered proteins, some of which are of human origin and some of plant origin, capable of binding specific molecular targets, in a similar way to antibodies.
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However, compared with antibodies, Affimers have several innovative and distinctive features, which could potentially make them a better tool for several diagnostic and therapeutic applications.
They are smaller, quicker to manufacture and easier to format, but they maintain antibody-like biologic activity when binding a target.
Top-15 biotech
The first of the two companies signed up, described as a global top-15 biotech, wanted an Affimer reagent to capture a human protein with no cross-reactivity against the same protein from other species commonly used in drug development such as rodents.
No antibodies exist that are species specific so the new Affimer reagent will allow the biotech partner to develop previously-unavailable assays to support its drug development activities, Avacta said.
The second firm, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, wanted to detect a certain human protein, mutations of which are known to lead to worse overall survival rates in some cancers.
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This protein is one of a group of very similar proteins and no antibodies are available that can differentiate reliably between the different members of this protein family.
Avacta said it was able to generate several Affimer reagents that met these requirements and the company has taken exclusive rights to one of these Affimer reagents to support its in-house drug discovery programmes in oncology.
Satisfactory solution
"These two custom Affimer reagent licensing deals are further evidence of the ability of Affimer technology to meet challenging requirements for use in real world applications when, to date, antibodies have been unable to provide a satisfactory solution,” said chief executive, Dr Alastair Smith.
“At this early stage of commercialisation such successes are important factors in building awareness and adoption of the Affimer technology, which is key to allowing us to deliver on our strategy of executing therapeutic and diagnostic licensing deals.
“This excellent progress follows the recent exclusive licensing deal with a top three global diagnostics company and I look forward to being able to update the market again in the near future."