Tag: Merus
Company News: SUPPRESTEM Consortium Led by Merus Receives € 6 Million FP7 Grant from the European Union
– Development of Therapeutic Bispecific Antibodies (Biclonics™) Targeting Treatment-resistant Cancer Stem Cells Using Patient-Derived Organoid Screening Tools –
Utrecht, The Netherlands, May 27, 2013 – Merus B.V., a biopharmaceutical company focusing on innovative human antibody therapeutics, today announced that it has been granted funding from the European Union’s FP7 program. Merus is leading the SUPPRESSTEM consortium which was granted a total of about €6 million to develop novel antibody-based therapeutics targeting cancer stem cells for the treatment of colorectal cancer as well as patient-derived organoid-based screening tools to aid drug discovery. The consortium includes The Hubrecht Institute (The Netherlands), OcellO B.V. (The Netherlands), Fundacio Privada Institut de Recerca Biomedica (Spain), and The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (UK).
Specifically, the consortium is addressing mechanisms that lead to the development of treatment resistance and tumor escape in colon cancer, a problem that has hampered the development of efficient therapeutics in the past. Furthermore, it is pioneering the application of patient-derived tissue in drug discovery to address the high clinical failure rate in cancer drug research. It is hoped that the SUPPRESSTEM results will have broad application in cancer drug development.
In the SUPPRESSTEM consortium, Merus will develop Biclonics™ antibodies which will both modulate the Wnt pathway and address growth factor receptors to specifically inhibit cancer stem cells with minimal toxicity on healthy tissue. Functional screening of these stem cell-targeting bispecific antibodies for specific inhibitory activity and for selecting lead candidates will be done using organoids.
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: Merus Achieves Milestone with Novartis Option Fund
– Company Reaches Milestone in Biclonics™ Program Partnered with Novartis –
Merus B.V., a biopharmaceutical company focusing on innovative human antibody therapeutics, today announced it has met the second milestone in its option agreement with the Novartis Option Fund (NOF). The achievement triggers an undisclosed milestone payment.
In 2010, Merus had entered into an option agreement with the Novartis Option Fund for an exclusive license to one of Merus’ oncology programs. The deal grants the Novartis Option Fund rights to a product candidate created by the Biclonics™ and Oligoclonics™ technologies of Merus. Merus is potentially entitled to milestone and license payments in excess of $200 million, as well as royalties.
Ton Logtenberg, CEO and founder of Merus, commented: “Reaching this key milestone in our program partnered with NOF underlines the power of our platform to generate antibodies addressing multiple targets simultaneously with high potency and the desired functional activity.”
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.