Swiss oncology-focused Araris Biotech, a spin-off company from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and ETH Zurich, which is pioneering the development of next generation, proprietary antibody-drug conjugate (ADC)-linker technology, has entered a collaboration agreement with Japanese R&S driven specialty pharma Taiho Pharmaceutical Co.
Tailor-made
Current development technologies involve complex engineering efforts and multi-step conjugation procedures that take up significant time and require substantial resources.
Araris Biotech‘s ready-to-use linker-payload platforms and site-specific conjugation techniques enables payload attachment to ‘off-the-shelf’ antibodies in one step without needing to re-engineer or reduce antibodies. ADCs developed using this technology are highly homogenous and stable, resulting in potent ADC therapies with the potential for unparalleled efficacy and tolerability.
Using the company’s technology, scientists at Araris Biotech’s have generated highly efficacious and tolerable as exemplified in a number of experiments using its topoisomerase- and auristatin- based linker-payloads, providing patients with groundbreaking treatment options for diseases of high unmet medical needs.
Agreement
Based on the agreement, Araris Biotech will use its proprietary linker-conjugation platform to generate novel ADCs against undisclosed targets provided by Taiho Pharmaceutical Co.
The resulting ADCs developed by Araris will be further tested and evaluated by Taiho.
“We are proud to enter a collaboration with Taiho Pharmaceutical and look forward to working with the Taiho team to develop next-generation ADCs with improved efficacy and tolerability,” noted Dragan Grabulovski, Ph.D., acting chief executive officer of Araris.
“This agreement underlines the potential of our linker-payload platform to deliver novel ADCs with excellent properties, and it positions our company as a highly attractive partner for pharmaceutical companies,” added Philipp Spycher, Ph.D., chief scientific officer of Araris.
The financial terms of the collaboration agreement were not disclosed.
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