Terms of the deal provide BiondVax with an option for a worldwide license to develop and commercialize the NanoAbs, which are also known as VHH-antibodies or nanobodies.
Israel-based BiondVax Pharmaceuticals, a company focused on developing treatments for infectious diseases, forged an antibody licensing agreement with the Max Planck Society to develop innovative nanosized antibodies, known as NanoAbs.
Terms of the deal provide BiondVax with an option for a worldwide license to develop and commercialize the NanoAbs, which are also known as VHH-antibodies or nanobodies. Development of the NanoAbs has already begun, and BiondVax’s initial preclinical results are expected next year. Additionally, the Israel-based company noted that it plans to start a preclinical proof of concept study of inhaled COVID-19 NanoAbs in 2022 with initial human clinical trials results in 2023.
NanoAbs have shown potential in several inflammatory-related markets, including psoriasis, asthma, macular degeneration, and psoriatic arthritis. These are all diseases with known and validated antibody drug targets, which should shorten development timelines while increasing the probability for drug approval.
BiondVax Chief Executive Officer Amir Reichman said the NanoAb platform provides a significant opportunity for the company with the potential for a pipeline of multiple products.
“We are going after targets already validated, but with a proprietary NanoAb that we expect will have meaningful advantages in efficacy, cost and ease of use and treatment; a true ‘biobetter’ capable of capturing significant market share and expanding the market. The technology is also a great fit to our manufacturing site in Jerusalem and our experience and expertise in biological drug development,” Reichman said in a statement.
NanoAb blueprints are extracted from blood samples of immunized alpacas. They are then selected and optimized in laboratories before being used for production in large fermenters. NanoAbs can be mass-produced through recombinant protein manufacturing, which BiondVax said its site could handle.
BiondVax noted that NanoAbs previously developed by its collaborators have shown “valuable competitive advantages” over existing therapies. Among those advantages are “uniquely strong binding affinity, stability at high temperatures, and potential for more effective and convenient routes of administration,” the company said.
BiondVax wasn’t the only company to strike a collaboration. Also, this morning, Totus Medicines announced a collaboration with the artificial intelligence institute Mila, based in Quebec. The mutually beneficial partnership will allow both organizations to harness each other’s expertise and drug discovery capabilities. For Cambridge, Mass.-based Totus, the partnership is coming when the company is on-track to advance a candidate into the clinic later this year.
“Artificial intelligence plays a key role in the development of Totus’ drug discovery platform. A partnership with Mila gives us access to some of the brightest minds in AI, which will surely help us take our platform to the next level to treat the untreatable with even more precision and efficiency,” Totus Chief Data Officer John Davies said in a statement.
Stéphane Létourneau, executive vice president at Mila, echoed Davies.
“Totus’ drug design platform has great potential, and we are eager to collaborate and offer our research and know-how. Totus’ chemical biology expertise, coupled with our AI expertise, has the potential to transform the process of drug discovery as we know it,” he said.
Totus’ partnership with Mila comes days after the company forged an agreement with the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) to develop more powerful PI3K-alpha inhibitors with longer-lasting effects and fewer side effects than those inhibitors currently available. PI3K is one of the most frequently mutated genes in oncology and can be found in multiple types, including breast, colon, lung, bladder and stomach cancers. Despite the high prevalence of P13K in cancer, currently available therapeutics are effective in less than 10% of these patients. Also, the currently available drugs have some toxicity concerns, and the efficacy can be short-lived.
