Summary
- Profile Type
- Technology offer
- POD Reference
- TOGB20241203017
- Term of Validity
- 3 December 2024 - 3 December 2025
- Company's Country
- United Kingdom
- Type of partnership
- Commercial agreement with technical assistance
- Research and development cooperation agreement
- Investment agreement
- Targeted Countries
- All countries
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General information
- Short Summary
- This UK SME is focused on increasing the targeting specificity of antibody-based immunotherapy, minimising side-effects and allowing higher dosage. By making the antibodies inactive until exposed to light they can make them regionally specific, sparing the rest of the body. The company is looking for partners to help with funding and research collaboration, pre-clinical and clinical trial establishment and clinical investigation.
- Full Description
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Established in 2018 this UK MedTech companies’ technology has been developed to increase the targeting specificity of any antibody.
From an array of possible candidates for specificity enhancement, anti-CD3 antibodies bind to quiescent T-cells are turning them into extremely potent killer T-cells representing their prime target. Anti-CD3 antibodies, already widely clinically used for delocalised haematological cancers. However, its use for solid tumour is beset by the problem of targeting it to tumour whilst leaving the rest of the body unharmed from the serious side-effects that this an extremely potent antibody can otherwise cause when circulating around the body. Solving this problem will lead to widespread use for a wide variety of indications, making anti-CD3 one of the outstanding anti-cancer antibodies yet developed.
They approach this by making it light dependent such that it can be activated at will at (i) easily accessible topical sites, (ii) through endoscopic procedures and, (iii) at operation when the tumour has been debulked and the operative site can be readily illuminated. Importantly, their work has indicated that local illumination not only kills the primary tumour but also dramatically reduces distant, metastatic disease through, so called, abscopal effects resulting from engagement of the host’s immune system.
Their aim is to dramatically reduce non-specific side effects of the derivatised antibodies and will enable high doses to be given to kill cancerous cells as quickly and effectively as possible. Such anti-CD3 antibodies may be used alone against a wide variety of cancers or combined, in a traditional bispecific form, with antibody binding sites directed at tumour markers.
The company is looking for funding, business partners, research and clinical collaboration. The most important priorities of the company are:
• optimisation and establishment of the first light-activatable anti-CD3 product
• completion of pre-clinical trials previously initiated with an earlier successful version
• entering clinical trials as quickly as possible based on an already widely regulated anti-CD3 product
After initiating this field with an early Nature Medicine publication their original work indicated the power of light activatable antibodies through conjugation with light sensitive nitrophenyl ethanol. This work showed the effectiveness of light-driven anti-CD3 antibodies at killing a highly metastatic ovarian tumour in mice transgenic for human CD3. In wishing to make this approach even more clinically effective they developed the approach by means of reversibly cloaking the antibody with polyethylene glycol (PEG). PEG is widely already used to enhance therapeutic antibodies; however, care is taken not to obstruct the antibody binding sites. They approach this differently – to obstruct the binding sites but with a photo-removable PEG. In doing so they obtain both the advantages of PEGylation and enabling control over the antibody to be in its active state when and, most importantly, where it is required. - Advantages and Innovations
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Immunotherapy is a sector that is increasing in importance at a remarkable rate, however, as pointed out even in the national press recently:
“Unfortunately, at the moment most people treated with immunotherapy see no benefit – Many suffer a relapse or experience serious side effects” (BBC News 13th October 2024).
What is clearly required are immunotherapeutic treatments that hit the cancer as hard as possible, as quickly as possible, with minimal side effects. This means that treatment must be truly specific to the actual target location of the cancer. Their approach is aimed at that goal – to allow precise targeting enabling antibodies that would otherwise not be specific enough for clinical use. - Stage of Development
- Concept stage
- Sustainable Development Goals
- Goal 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal
- Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being
- IPR status
- No IPR applied
Partner Sought
- Expected Role of a Partner
-
Give more details about the type of partner sought and what would be expected of them
Potential partners should be dedicated to the development of means of curing cancer as rapidly and gently as possible, without delays that can allow mutation and metastatic deposits to appear.
Collaborative partners from those with specific oncological backgrounds, to drug delivery systems, light delivery systems, recombinant proteins and business development are actively sought to be part of an exciting network. - Type and Size of Partner
- Big company
- SME 50 - 249
- SME 11-49
- SME <=10
- R&D Institution
- Other
- University
- Type of partnership
- Commercial agreement with technical assistance
- Research and development cooperation agreement
- Investment agreement
Dissemination
- Technology keywords
- 06001013 - Medical Technology / Biomedical Engineering
- 06001012 - Medical Research
- Market keywords
- 05003001 - Therapeutic services
- 05007007 - Other medical/health related (not elsewhere classified)
- 05001001 - Diagnostic services
- Targeted countries
- All countries