arGEN-X awarded €1.5m grant from IWT in Flanders

Published: 19-May-2015

To advance the application of NHance Fc modifications in therapeutic antibodies


Biotech group arGEN-X has received a €1.5m grant from the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Sciences and Technology in Flanders (IWT) to advance and commercialise the application of its NHance Fc modifications in therapeutic antibodies.

Michael Saunders, Senior Director, Targets & Programmes at arGEN-X, said NHance is the company's proprietary approach to prolonging antibody circulation time. With the IWT grant, the company aims to confirm further the benefit of antibodies equipped with NHance by demonstrating enhanced tissue and tumour penetration with select antibody candidates in murine disease models.

arGEN-X combines the diversity of the llama immune system with antibody engineering to advance a clinical pipeline to treat patients with cancer and autoimmune diseases.

The company's technology suite consists of four complementary platforms: the proprietary SIMPLE Antibody discovery platform enables the targeting of complex or novel disease targets, while the Fc engineering technologies NHance, ABDEG and POTELLIGENT, have the potential to further enhance the intrinsic therapeutic functionalities of its antibody leads by prolonging product residence time in the human body, enhancing the clearance of disease targets or pathogenic antibodies and enhancing antibody cell killing through antibody-dependent cell-mediated cytotoxicity (ADCC), respectively. These technology platforms can be applied alone or in combination to yield differentiated therapeutic antibodies with multiple modes of action.

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