On March 16, 2018 argenx (Euronext & Nasdaq: ARGX), a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing a deep pipeline of differentiated antibody-based therapies for the treatment of severe autoimmune diseases and cancer, reported that it has received a €2.5 million grant from Flanders Innovation and Entrepreneurship (VLAIO) (Press release, argenx, MAR 16, 2018, View Source [SID1234524854]). This grant will be used to examine the role and therapeutic potential of proteins involved in regulating localized release of transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β).
Schedule your 30 min Free 1stOncology Demo!
Discover why more than 1,500 members use 1stOncology™ to excel in:
Early/Late Stage Pipeline Development - Target Scouting - Clinical Biomarkers - Indication Selection & Expansion - BD&L Contacts - Conference Reports - Combinatorial Drug Settings - Companion Diagnostics - Drug Repositioning - First-in-class Analysis - Competitive Analysis - Deals & Licensing
Schedule Your 30 min Free Demo!
"We are very pleased to receive this support from VLAIO, an organization that has enabled the steady build of highly competitive Flemish biotechnology companies. We hope to use the diversity of our immune repertoires to streamline target validation and transform novel proteins into next generation therapeutic antibody programs," commented Michael Saunders, Vice President External Research at argenx. "Through this grant, we will advance our cutting-edge research around TGF-β within our Innovative Access Program (IAP). Locally released TGF-β plays an important role in immunosuppression, and, as such, we see inhibition of this target as an important therapeutic goal in immuno-oncology. As global inhibition of TGF-β comes with important side effects, we are aiming to identify antibodies that can inhibit localized production of TGF-β by blocking a series of targets that play a role in the specific spatio-temporal TGF-β activation."
The €2.5 million subsidy from VLAIO was granted to argenx through its IAP as funding of research around selective SIMPLE AntibodyTM inhibition of TGF-β for potential therapeutic use in immuno-oncology. We believe the IAP allows us to continue to mature a unique and sustainable pipeline and brings cutting edge antibody discovery technologies to centers of novel target research.
About SIMPLE AntibodyTM platform
argenx’s technology suite consists of four complementary platforms. The proprietary SIMPLE Antibody discovery platform enables the discovery of antibodies targeting novel, complex disease targets, and has generated antibody leads with attributes beyond those attainable using current platforms. The Fc engineering technologies NHance, ABDEG and POTELLIGENT have the potential to further augment the intrinsic therapeutic functionalities of our antibody leads by prolonging product residence time in the human body, enhancing the clearance of either disease targets or pathogenic antibodies and enhancing antibody cell killing through antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity. These technology platforms can be applied either individually or in combination yielding differentiated therapeutic antibodies with multiple modes of action.
About the Innovative Access Program
Through the IAP, we bring our antibody discovery technologies to the heart of novel target research through close collaboration with academic experts and small biotech companies. The IAP allows our
collaborators to use our technologies to unravel the functions of novel proteins in disease. In return, we receive early access to targets with therapeutic relevance and the potential to become the next therapeutic antibody programs in our pipeline.