The biotech kyron.bio has announced a strategic partnership with the pharma group Servier.
Servier will select an antibody for kyron.bio to glycoengineer using its proprietary technology and will fund the related research activities.
Depending on the outcomes, Servier may then choose to pursue further antibody engineering and development opportunities.
Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed in the announcement.
kyron.bio’s proprietary glycoengineering platform can enhance therapeutic performance of antibodies by enabling precise control of the glycan structures to improve efficacy, safety and scalability.
In this partnership kyron.bio will seek to demonstrate clear glycan control on the Servier antibody of interest for a specific pre-determined N-glycoform.
Why this matters
Many antibody drugs are undermined by unwanted immune responses.
As a result, they may be halted during clinical development or, when used in patients, achieve only limited success because the patient’s immune system rapidly clears the therapeutic.
There is a potential solution in the use of precise N-glycans, which are sugar molecules found on the surface of the drug. Precise control over these can prevent unwanted immune attack.
The engineering of glycans has so far been underexploited due to technical challenges, which have limited its application in drug design.
kyron.bio aims to change this, developing a scalable, proprietary method that allows comprehensive control over glycosylation, opening up the possibility of using precision glycosylation in next-generation drug design.
Speaking exclusively to Manufacturing Chemist, Dr Emilia McLaughlin, founder and CEO of kyron.bio explained the importance of the new partnership: "We have shown for the first time this can be solved using precise N-glycans, which are underexploited."
This is a small extract of the full article which is available
ONLY to premium content subscribers.
Click below to get premium content on Manufacturing Chemist.
Not yet a Subscriber?