Affilogic and Samabriva entered into an Option and License Agreement to develop Nanofitin®-conjugated biotherapeutics to treat Lysosomal Storage Disorders
Nantes and Amiens, France, September 2018
Affilogic and Samabriva jointly announced that they recently entered into an Option and License Agreement to develop biotherapeutics for the treatment of patients with Lysosomal Storage Disorders. Samabriva will use Affilogic’s proprietary Nanofitins® technology to develop new therapies to address strong unmet needs in these patients such as the associated neurological damages.
In the framework of a research collaboration initiated in 2016, Samabriva will pursue the evaluation of Nanofitin® candidates selected by Affilogic from their proprietary libraries in combination with lysosomal enzymes. The partners will combine research efforts to optimize such Nanofitin®- conjugated biotherapeutics in order to satisfy unmet medical needs in the treatment of patients with Lysosomal Storage Disorders.
Affilogic’s involvement in the DiaSyn project
Madrid, Spain, May 2018
Dr. Mathieu Cinier, Scientific Director, made a presentation about Affilogic’s involvement in the DiaSyn project.
The overall objective of the DiaSyn project is to develop a PET imaging tracer for highly specific and sensitive detection and quantification of αSynuclein in the brain. It is based on the combined use of nano-tools together with a bioorthogonal imaging approach. The project’s work, which has started in September 2016, shall be performed in 3 years by Affilogic and its partners, the University of Liège, the University of Artois, UCB Biopharma and the Cajal Institute.
Affilogic’s intervention at PEGS Boston
Boston, USA, May 2018
Dr. Mathieu Cinier, Scientific Director at Affilogic, spoke at the Essential Protein Engineering Summit.
Dr. Mathieu Cinier, invited to speak on the theme of “Innovating Therapeutic Fusion Protein”, gave a conference entitled “Nanofitin®-Antibody Fusion as a Novel Multispecific Platform”. Many different bispecific formats have been engineered to allow the additional neutralization of an escaping pathway or the recruitment of effectors, but often at the expense of the overall physicochemical properties of the biologic itself compared to the actual state of the art for monoclonal antibodies. Nanofitin®-Antibody fusion is proposed as a novel multispecific platform.
Additional targeting specificities are provided by the fusion of Nanofitins® to existing antibodies, without altering their initial physico-chemical properties. Affilogic thinks that the bispecific field might provide a new breakthrough for the management of complex diseases, but that keeping in mind molecules shall still be developable as therapeutics is paramount. As such, Affilogic is proposing a developability oriented novel multispecific platform. Thanks to their small size, Nanofitins® can be plugged on an antibody at different locations, either as a single module or as an assembly, while still providing a minimal hindrance on the antibody that retain its functionality. Moreover, Nanofitin®-Antibody fusions benefit from the high stability and solubility of the Nanofitin® scaffold, providing to the Nanofitin®-based multi-specific platform a developablility advantage.
Affilogic’s intervention at the 4th Biologics & Biosimilars Congress
Berlin, Germany, March 2018
Dr. Mathieu Cinier, Scientific Director at Affilogic, spoke at the 4th Biologics & Biosimilars Congress.
Dr. Mathieu Cinier, invited to speak on the theme of “Protein Biotherapeutics”, made a presentation entitled “Nanofitins® as a versatile platform for cancer imaging and drug conjugates”, exemplified by a case study concerning anti-EGFR Nanofitins® cross-reacting on both the human and murine EGFR.
Using the Nanofitin® technology as a vector for radioimaging displays many advantages, like the possibility to tailor the selection to obtain cross-reactive Nanofitin® (allowing a better significance of the preclinical studies in murine model in term of biodistribution) and their fast systemic clearance (meaning compatibility with fast decaying radio-isotope, simple radioactive waste handling, no accumulation in healthy organs, better patient compliance and higher production capacity). The high stability of the scaffold and the absence of cysteine allows easy regioselective conjugation.
Using the Nanofitin technology as a vector for drug conjugate also offers benefits. Their small scaffold enables a high tissue penetration, and their fast clearance can be tuned to allow longer resilience via Affilogic’s proprietary half-life extension technology. Nanofitins® can also be easily conjugated to nanoparticles and payloads, via chemical conjugation or genetic fusion.
Affilogic wins the award of the best pitch at the RIBs 2018
Paris, France, February 2018
Affilogic was part of the 14 startups selected by a jury of oncologists, investors and industrialists to attend the French “Rencontres Internationales de Biotechnologie”. Dr. Olivier Kitten, Founder and CEO at Affilogic, won the award of the best pitch.
The objective of the RIBs is to bring together international industrialists and selected startups on the basis of their research themes, the excellence of their project and their desire to forge alliances with pharmaceutical companies. The RIBs 2018 was on the theme of immuno-oncology. The overall strategy of Affilogic is to treat cancer via multiple pathways thanks to multi-functional Nanofitin®-based targeted drugs. Two partnering schemes are possible : Affilogic can partner with pharmaceutical companies on existing Nanofitin® modules currently developed in immuno-oncology that are not encumbered by any exclusivity rights given to a current partner, or can generate new Nanofitins® since it also has a platform-based business model.