Tag: Mark Throsby
Company News: ProBioGen and Merus Sign Deal on GlymaxX® ADCC Enhancement Technology
– GlymaxX® Manufacturing Technology Improves Bispecific Antibody Activity for Solid Tumor Treatment –
ProBioGen AG and Merus B.V. today announced that the companies have signed a non-exclusive commercial option and license agreement on ProBioGen’s GlymaxX® fucose-engineering technology. Under the terms of the agreement, ProBioGen is granting Merus the non-exclusive right to use the GlymaxX® technology to enhance the ADCC (Antibody-Dependent Cell-Mediated Cytotoxicity) activity of one of its lead products, a bispecific anti-cancer antibody. The license is covering clinical development and production. Financial details have not been disclosed.
The GlymaxX® technology for the production of afucosylated antibodies and proteins is based on the stable integration of a heterologous enzyme into any antibody producer cell line, leading to the interference with the cells’ intracellular fucose biosynthesis pathway. As a unique feature differentiating it from other approaches, the GlymaxX® technology can be applied to both novel and already existing antibody producer cell lines and entire antibody expression and discovery platforms without negatively affecting their productivity. Moreover, it is simple, rapid, potent and universally applicable.
Company News: Merus Further Expands R&D Capacity
– Company Contracts R&D Service Provider FairJourney Biologics –
Merus B.V., a biopharmaceutical company focusing on innovative human antibody therapeutics, today announced that it has significantly expanded its capabilities to generate large collections of distinct, unique bispecific antibodies against target combinations.
Under an agreement signed with R&D service provider FairJourney Biologics, Merus will strengthen its R&D resources for selecting the most promising common light chain antibodies generated by its MeMo® transgenic mouse. These antibodies are then formatted into full-length bispecific IgG antibodies – called Biclonics™ – that can be further tested in high-throughput cell-based assays.
Company News: OcellO and Merus Sign Agreement for Screening Bispecific Cancer Antibodies
OcellO B.V. and Merus B.V. have entered into a collaboration under which OcellO will provide screening services to Merus. OcellO, a biotech company providing drug discovery screening services using its proprietary high throughput 3D cell culture-based screening platform, will use its platform to profile bispecific antibodies designed by Merus for the treatment of cancer. Financial details of the collaboration have not been disclosed.
Mark Throsby, Chief Operating Officer at Merus, commented: “The strength of our approach is its ability to generate thousands of full-length, bispecific human IgG antibodies addressing combinations of targets expressed by tumor cells. OcellO is able to provide high quality data on the functional properties of large panels of bispecific antibodies. These data can’t be obtained from other in vitro screening assays and are pivotal in identifying antibody leads with unique modes of action.”
Company News: Merus Announces the Full Validation of Its MeMo® Transgenic Mouse for Common Light Chain Human Antibodies
Merus B.V., a biopharmaceutical company focused on innovative human antibody therapeutics, announced today the full validation of its transgenic MeMo® mouse for common light chain human antibodies. The MeMo® mouse creates human antibody diversity using a large repertoire of human heavy chains paired with a common human light chain.
“Over the last year, we have immunized MeMo® mice with half a dozen antigens and analyzed the immune response,” said Mark Throsby, COO at Merus. “We are extremely excited by the performance of the MeMo® technology; serum antibody titers as well as size, diversity, functionality and developability of antibody panels are comparable to those of wild type mice.”
“In MeMo®, a single human light chain drives the generation of a normal B cell compartment as well as supports a robust immune response,” said Ton Logtenberg, CEO and founder of Merus. “The large and diverse panels of high-quality human antibodies that we retrieve from MeMo® show that this platform is comparable to the best-in-class transgenic platforms using diversified heavy and light chains.”
Because of the common light chain, MeMo®-derived antibodies can be immediately used to rapidly generate thousands of bispecific antibodies (Biclonics™) and combinations of antibodies (Oligoclonics®) for functional screening. Merus has shown that the quality and diversity of common light chain antibodies drives the success of identifying Biclonics™ with unprecedented potencies for application in oncology. The MeMo® mouse is available for licensing.