Abzyme Therapeutics has developed a number of modular therapeutic candidates for immuno-oncology. These assets are available for out-licensing or co-development. These biologic candidates can be further developed as stand-alone therapeutics or a component of multi-specific antibodies. Most of our modular candidates are single domain VHH antibodies that are ideal for constructing novel immunotherapies for cancer. Their small size and single-chain structure does not require the correct folding environment for activity that standard antibodies and scFvs do. Therefore, VHH domains can readily be used to construct bi- and even multi-specific immunotherapies and quickly recruited for use in CAR-T and CAR-NK therapies.
Abzyme has the following preclinical VHH-based antibody assets for the development of novel cross-linking therapies:
- Anti-BCMA VHH
- Anti-CD19 VHH
- Anti-CD22 VHH
- Anti-CD33 VHH
- Anti-TIGIT VHH
- Anti-VEGF VHH
- Anti-ANGPTL4 VHH
- Anti-CD147 VHH
The above VHH-based assets are available for licensing.
Besides VHH-based antibodies, Abzyme also have engineered other modular biologics applicable for cancer treatment. Some modulars are based on ScFV. Other modulars are engineered receptors.
For scFv-based modulars, pH-dependent anti-CD3 scFV and human/Cyno cross-reactive anti-CD3 scFV are two modulars that can be used as an arm in T-cell engaging bispecific antibodies. pH-dependent anti-CD3 scFV that has strong binding to human CD3 at acidic pH, with negligent binding to the target at neutral pH, is useful for generation of bispecific antibodies targeting solid tumors that have acidic pH in the tumor microenvironment. Anti-CD3 scFV that strongly react to both human and cynomolgus CD3 are useful for development of T-cell engagers that can be validated in non-human primates.
Using our protein evolution platforms, we have engineered a set of immune checkpoint receptors with high affinity to their ligands. These soluble immune checkpoint inhibitors with high target affinity can be used to disrupt the immune checkpoint pathway to release the immune system to fight cancer. One example is engineered PD1 receptor mutants that have sub-nanomolar affinity to both PD-L1 and PD-L2 ligands, which are both highly expressed on cancer cells.
The above assets are available for either licensing or co-development. Contact us for further information.