Novel soloMER based albumin binder will be used for two therapeutic fusion proteins™
Aberdeen, Scotland and Seoul, Korea; January 7th 2019: Elasmogen Ltd, developer of next generation soloMER biologics, announced today that ImmunoForge has entered a license agreement to Elasmogen’s proprietary NDure half-life extension technology for use in two non-disclosed targets. ImmunoForge will be responsible for all pre-clinical and clinical development as well as for manufacturing and commercialisation of the resulting products. Elasmogen will receive an initial up-front payment in addition to future milestone and royalty payments.
Elasmogen’s NDure albumin binder is based on the company’s soloMER platform. At just 11 kDa, soloMERs are the smallest naturally occurring binding domains. Their simple molecular architecture facilitates easy combination with a wide range of proteins and peptides to enable rapid development of multi-functional therapeutics.
“This licensing agreement provides further validation of the benefits of our soloMER platform and NDure technology,” said Caroline Barelle, CEO of Elasmogen. “At less than 1/10th the size of an antibody, NDure allows rapid re-formatting and simple manufacturing while retaining all of the benefits of high specificity albumin binding.”
“Using Elasmogen’s proprietary technology, ImmunoForge will develop first-in-class dual hybrid agonists,” said Sung-Min Ahn, CEO of ImmunoForge. “The new dual hybrid agonists will strengthen our sarcopenia pipeline and make new breakthroughs in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases.”
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Company Contacts:
Caroline Barelle, CEO, Elasmogen. Tel: +44 (0)1224 438545; caroline.barelle@elasmogen.com
Sung-Min Ahn, CEO, ImmunoForge. Tel: +82 (0)70 7721 0755; ahn@immunoforge.com
About Elasmogen:
Elasmogen, a spin-out from the University of Aberdeen, is a drug discovery and development, biopharmaceutical company developing soloMERs, fully humanized, next generation, single chain biologics for auto-inflammatory diseases, ophthalmology, oncology and intracellular delivery. soloMERs are proprietary humanized clinical candidates derived from VNARS (variable new-antigen receptors) which exist naturally in sharks as high affinity binding domains. With a different ancestral origin from antibodies this example of 400 million year old convergent evolution places VNARs outside of the complex patent landscape that describes and protects antibody drug discovery. soloMERs are the smallest (9% of the size of an antibody) and most robust naturally occurring binding domain which makes them ideal for binding to intracellular targets. The Company’s technology has been endorsed through partnerships with Almac, Amgen, Feldan, Merck and now ImmunoForge.
Elasmogen is unique in its capacity to isolate and develop soloMERs, with a multi-layered IP position covering the platform, products and process including an exclusive license to over 20 patents granted in the US, Europe and other territories together with the entire know-how and VNAR pipeline from the Scottish Biologics Facility, University of Aberdeen. More information is available at www.Elasmogen.com
About ImmunoForge:
ImmunoForge, a spin-out from Gachon University, is a drug development company focusing on sarcopenia and cancer. Based on its unique patent for the use of GLP-1 analogues for sarcopenia, ImmunoForge are targeting Duchenne muscular dystrophy, ALS, senile sarcopenia, polymyositis and cancer cachexia. Also, it focuses on genomically defined rare cancers, such as chronic myelogenous leukemia with BCR-ABL1 T315I mutation, which is resistant to BCR-ABL1 inhibitors. More information is available at www.immunoforge.com