Two US biotech companies have taken exclusive rights to Affimer reagents for research and development use, to support their respective drug development programmes.
Avacta, developer of Affimer biotherapeutics and research reagents, provides to Life Sciences companies for therapeutic, diagnostic and research use.
First company
The first of the two biotech partners was allowed to take exclusive rights to one of those Affimer molecules for research use.
The first, a global top fifteen biotech company, needed 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 rodent.
No antibodies exist that are capable of providing this “species specificity” and the new Affimer reagent will allow the biotech partner to develop previously unavailable assays to support its drug development activities.
Second company
The second, a clinical-stage, wished to detect a certain human protein, mutations of which are known to lead to worse overall survival rates in some cancers.
This protein is one of a group of similar proteins – no antibodies are available that can differentiate reliably between the different members of this protein family.
The company has taken exclusive rights to one Affimer reagent to support its in-house drug discovery programmes in oncology.
Future progress
Alastair Smith, Avacta Group Chief Executive Officer, said:
“This excellent progress follows the recent exclusive licensing deal with a top three global diagnostics company.”
“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.”