British Synbio’s Llama Antibodies recruited for Cancer T-Cell Therapy – Labiotech.eu (blog)

Isogenica has licensed its synthetic llama antibody library to Maverick Therapeutics, which develops cancer T-cell therapies designed to reduce side effects.

Isogenica is a synthetic biology company near Cambridge that develops libraries of therapeutic antibodies. The biotech has granted US-based Maverick Therapeutics licenses to its llamdA VHHantibody library for the discovery, development and commercialization of therapeutic products. In exchange, it will receive upfront, annual and milestone payments as the antibodies are developed by the client.

Isogenicas llamdA VHH library comprisessingle domain llama antibodies created and screened in vitro,which consumes half the time and creates greater diversity than immunizing llamas. According to the company, its llamdA system routinely interrogates the equivalent to the whole antibody repertoire of one million llamas.

Maverick Therapeutics is a very young biotech, spun out from Harpoon Therapeuticsjust last year. The company is backed by MPM Capital, a USVC managed by biotech veteran Patrick Bauerle from Munich.

The company is developing a unique approach to T-cell cancer therapy. Its antibodies are designed to be inactive when administered and only activate in the tumor microenvironment. This way, theT-cells do not attack healthy tissues, avoiding side effects. Japanese big pharma Takeda recently offered the young company 117M ($125M) to develop this technology.

Mavericks approach looks promising since severe side effects are common in T-cell therapies such asCAR-T, with some companies reporting thedeathof several patients. Other companieslike the French Cellectis and Stimunity are also developing their own strategies to increase the safety of CAR-T.

If successful, the development of Isogenicas antibodies by Maverick could bring the British biotech revenues to accelerate the launch of its new library of fully synthetic human antibodies.

Images from Sergey Didenko /Shutterstock

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British Synbio's Llama Antibodies recruited for Cancer T-Cell Therapy - Labiotech.eu (blog)