WALTHAM, Mass., and CAMBRIDGE, UK, June 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Domantis, the human Domain Antibody (dAb) therapeutics company, today announced the grant of EP1517921B with broad composition of matter claims protecting its “AlbudAb” technology. AlbudAbs are dAbs that specifically bind to serum albumin and can dramatically enhance the half-life and efficacy of any molecule attached to them. The granted patent covers two or more dAbs linked to one another, where at least one dAb binds to serum albumin. The patent is the first to grant of a series of filings based on Domantis’ pioneering AlbudAb approach. Domantis’ lead AlbudAb program will enter late stage pre-clinical testing this year.
Domantis’ Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer Dr. Ian Tomlinson said, “We are delighted that such a broadly applicable technology has now been granted such extensive patent coverage. As part of Domantis’ Albutherapeutics franchise, we are using the AlbudAb approach to further expand our extensive pipeline of proprietary products, both by improving existing drugs and by creating a range of entirely new drugs with exceptional half-lives. We expect our lead AlbudAb to enter late stage pre-clinical testing this year.”
Human serum albumin has a very long half-life of about three weeks. Domantis has developed a range of albumin binding dAbs, or “AlbudAbs” that can be attached to a therapeutic compound (such as a peptide or another dAb) and then administered to the patient. By binding to the patient’s serum albumin the half-life of the therapeutic compound is dramatically enhanced, meaning that drugs with natural half-lives of minutes can be converted into AlbudAb-drug conjugates with half-lives well over a week. Domantis has shown in over ten different pre-clinical proof of concept models that this increase in half-life can lead to dramatic improvements in efficacy.
In contrast to existing approaches for extending the serum half-life of drugs, AlbudAbs are smaller and much easier to manufacture in microbial expression systems, such as bacteria or yeast. They represent a powerful and broadly applicable approach to improving the efficacy of short-lived therapeutic drugs and are expected to rival the current industry gold standards, such as PEGylation, Fc fusion and albumin fusion technologies, and provide significant cost of goods and dosing advantages.
The EP1517921B patent provides Domantis with dominant composition of matter protection until 2023 and covers all major European markets. The patent covers two or more dAbs, derived from any species, that are linked to one another, where at least one of the dAbs binds a target that increases the in vivo half-life. Coverage is provided for various formats, directed against any therapeutic target, and for numerous specific therapeutic targets. Methods of producing AlbudAb products, pharmaceutical compositions of AlbudAb products, nucleic acids encoding them, vectors and host cells are also protected. The patent complements other worldwide IP in the Domantis’ AlbudAb portfolio, such as WO2005118642 and WO2006051288, which cover AlbudAbs conjugated to non-antibody drugs.
Notes to Editors
Domantis is a biopharmaceutical company developing human Domain Antibody (dAb) therapeutics to treat many diseases including rheumatoid arthritis (RA), asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and multiple myeloma (MM). The Company has thirteen proprietary therapeutic programs and nine partnered therapeutic programs including those with Bristol Myers Squibb and Abbott Laboratories. Several of these programs will enter clinical trials in 2007, with further INDs being filed each year thereafter.
dAbs are the smallest functional binding units of human antibodies (IgGs), less than one tenth the size of an IgG. Their remarkable natural properties for stability and solubility coupled with their small size allow dAbs to be far more flexible therapeutic molecules than IgGs. Domantis uses dAbs as the core building block in several therapeutic strategies not possible with IgGs, including dual targeting products, therapeutics targeting cell-surface receptors, and dAb therapeutics delivered to targets in the lung via pulmonary administration. With dAbs, Domantis can build a rich pipeline of novel therapeutics that bring substantial efficacy, toxicity, convenience and cost benefits to patients across many different diseases.
The broad applicability of dAbs and their ability to quickly produce novel therapeutics has made Domantis an attractive partner for the pharmaceutical industry and it has struck deals with Bristol Myers Squibb, Peptech, Abbott Laboratories, ImClone, Tanox and Argenta Discovery whilst also attracting funding from the European Union for several therapeutic collaborations.
Monoclonal antibodies were invented in the 1970’s at the UK Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC-LMB), which has remained at the forefront of therapeutic antibody research since that time. In 1989, scientists in the MRC-LMB laboratories of Sir Gregory Winter published the discovery of dAbs. This discovery led to the creation of an extensive portfolio of intellectual property covering the development and use of dAbs, the binding domains of fully human antibodies. Domantis has exclusive licenses and assignments to these pioneering inventions for dAb products and extensive intellectual property covering dAb libraries, methods of discovery, compositions, and formulations of dAbs. As a result, Domantis is the only company capable of fully exploiting the commercial therapeutic applications of human dAbs.
Sir Gregory and Dr. Ian Tomlinson, world-renowned scientists from the MRC-LMB, launched Domantis in December 2000. Sir Gregory was also a founder of Cambridge Antibody Technology (CAT) plc. To date Domantis has raised $83 million from investors including Novo Nordisk, MC Life Science Ventures (Mitsubishi), 3i, Gray Ghost, Albany Ventures, MVM Limited, ISIS and Peptech Limited. Domantis employs over 70 staff and has research and development facilities in Cambridge, UK and commercial offices in Waltham, Massachusetts, US. See also http://www.domantis.com.
AlbuTherapeutic, AlbuTherapeutics, AlbudAb and AlbudAbs are trade marks of Domantis.
For more information please contact Robert Connelly, CEO, Domantis + 1 781 250 2833 Ted Agne, ComStrat Group +1 781 631 3117 Nicki Brimicombe, NB PR + 44 1883 732353
Domantis
CONTACT: Robert Connelly, CEO of Domantis, +1-781-250-2833; or Ted Agne ofComStrat Group +1-781-631-3117, Nicki Brimicombe, NB PR +44-1883-732353
Web site: http://www.domantis.com//
