Business
Major Therapeutics Co-development Partnership
Major Therapeutics Co-development Partnership.
About this update from Avacta Group Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n \nRNS Number : 5124V Avacta Group PLC 23 July 2018 \n\n \n\n \n24 July 2018\nAvacta Group plc\n(\"Avacta\" or \"the Group\" or \"the Company\")\n \nMajor Therapeutics Co-development Partnership \nCollaboration Based on Ground-breaking Co-Invention with Tufts University School of Medicine\n \nAvacta Group plc (AIM: AVCT), the developer of Affimer® biotherapeutics and reagents, is pleased to announce that it has agreed a co-development partnership with Bach BioSciences, a company commercialising the research of William Bachovchin, Professor of Developmental, Chemical and Molecular Biology at Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston. The collaboration will develop a new class of Affimer drug conjugate therapies with a novel mode of action that combines Avacta's Affimer technology with drug conjugates developed at Tufts. \nIn a ground-breaking co-invention with Tufts, the Company has devised a new class of drug conjugate. This selectively releases a potent drug in the tumour microenvironment (TME) without requiring cellular internalisation of the conjugate as is otherwise the case with traditional antibody-drug conjugates. Some of the novel and differentiating features of Avacta's Affimer-drug conjugate (\"AfDC\") platform include:\n· Utilising Affimers that target immune-checkpoints such as PD-L1 which serves the dual purpose of localising the drug conjugate to the tumour, while also being immuno-oncologically active and functioning as immune checkpoint inhibitors; and \n· Incorporating a novel linker chemistry designed by Tufts to release, only in the tumour, the active forms of highly potent small molecule drugs that are activators of innate immunity. This thereby creates a highly localised inflammatory event that is synergistic with the Affimer check-point inhibitor.\nAvacta and Tufts have jointly filed for broad patent protection for this inventive concept. The patent covers Affimers, and a wide range of other binders, against oncology, viral and inflammatory targets that are not internalised rapidly enough to be useful in traditional antibody-drug conjugates. It also covers a wide range of drugs to which the binders can be conjugated. \nThe drug development partnership that the Company is now initiating with Professor Bachovc...