Tuesday, 28. March 2023 / Press Release
Athebio Enters Development and License Agreement with Acuitas Therapeutics
Schlieren-Zurich, Switzerland, March 28, 2023 – Athebio AG, an innovation leader in the discovery and design of designed ankyrin repeat proteins (DARPins), today announced that it has entered a Development and License Agreement with Acuitas Therapeutics, a company focused on the development of delivery systems for nucleic acid therapeutics based on lipid nanoparticles (LNP). Under the agreement, Athebio provides Acuitas with exclusive access to its Athebody® DARPin technology to explore the potential of combining Athebio’s Athebody® DARPins and Acuitas’ LNP technology for targeted nucleic acid delivery using DARPin-LNP and make it accessible to Acuitas’ partners.
“We are excited to be working with the leader in the LNP field in order to tackle one of the most pressing issues for nucleic acid therapeutics – its target-specific delivery,” said Patrik Forrer, one of the inventors of the DARPin technology and CEO and Chairman of Athebio. “The corona crisis has proven the huge potential of nucleic acid therapeutics, but without the possibility to deliver nucleic acids target-specifically, its application fields will remain limited. Our Athebody® DARPins have ideal properties to potentially close this gap and take the mRNA technology to the next level. In particular, the highly stable Athebody® DARPins should allow for simple site-specific conjugation to LNP and confer highly specific target binding. The combination of superior manufacturability and tailored target binding would have game-changing potential and we are looking forward to exploring this together with Acuitas.”
About Athebio
Athebio enables its partners to develop superior targeted therapeutics of advanced efficacy and safety and thereby increased probability of clinical success. Athebio’s proprietary “plug & play” Athebody® platform is based on clinically validated designed ankyrin repeat proteins (DARPins) and can unlock therapeutic options not easily accessible with current antibody technologies. Rather than building up its own pipeline, Athebio licenses tailor-made Athebody®️ DARPins to its partners. Athebio has brought the DARPin technology to the next level through the development of its proprietary Athebody®️ DARPin platform. These hyper-versatile binders can easily be plugged as building blocks into a broad range of existing drug modalities. Athebody®️ DARPins offer game-changing advantages for generating next-generation multi-functional therapeutics – including excellent target specificity and affinity, ease of generating multi-specificity, high stability, small size, reliable folding, species cross-reactivity, superb developability, and good freedom-to-operate prospects.
About Acuitas Therapeutics
Vancouver-based Acuitas Therapeutics (www.acuitastx.com) is a private biotechnology company specializing in the development of delivery systems for nucleic acid therapeutics based on lipid nanoparticles. Acuitas partners with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, as well as non-governmental organizations and academic institutes, to advance nucleic acid therapeutics into clinical trials and the marketplace. The team works with global partners to develop new therapies to address unmet clinical needs based on the internationally recognized capabilities of its proprietary delivery technology. Acuitas Therapeutics’ lipid nanoparticle technology is used in the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine COMIRNATY®. The Acuitas team is currently working on therapeutics focused on addressing cancer, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, rabies and other serious diseases.
For additional information please contact:
Athebio AG
+41 44 508 08 28