Feldan Therapeutics & Elasmogen Announce Research Agreement With Amgen

Elasmogen Ltd and Feldan Therapeutics recently announced a research collaboration with Amgen to develop and deliver novel intracellular biologics. The collaboration combines the unique capabilities of Feldan’s Shuttle platform and Elasmogen’s soloMER technology to develop the delivery system and binding domains to two undisclosed intracellular targets for Amgen.

The Feldan Shuttle technology is a novel peptide-based delivery method that enables the highly efficient introduction of foreign proteins into cells. Elasmogen’s soloMER’s are the smallest naturally occurring binding domains. Their small size and robust nature, particularly the resistance to changes in pH and ability to bind in intracellular conditions makes them the perfect complement to Feldan’s technology.

“Currently all approved biologic antibody therapeutics act on extracellular targets, but intracellular delivery enables access to a much greater number of targets,” said François-Thomas Michaud, CEO, Feldan Therapeutics. “Intracellular delivery and binding of biologics can bridge the gap between small molecules and biologics.”

“This is an exciting opportunity to demonstrate the performance and capabilities of the combined Shuttle-soloMER technology. The expertise provided by Amgen will significantly accelerate the development of this potential new class of therapeutics,” said Caroline Barelle, CEO, Elasmogen.

In 2016, Feldan and Elasmogen established an exclusive partnership for the development of intracellular biologics. Working together, their research teams have demonstrated both intracellular and intranuclear delivery of soloMER binding domains.

Elasmogen, a spin-out from the University of Aberdeen, is a drug discovery and development, biopharmaceutical company developing soloMERs, fully humanized, next-generation, single-chain biologics for auto-inflammatory diseases, ophthalmology, oncology, and intracellular delivery. soloMERs are proprietary humanized clinical candidates derived from VNARS (variable new-antigen receptors), which exist naturally in sharks as high-affinity binding domains. With a different ancestral origin from antibodies, this example of 400- million-year-old convergent evolution places VNARs outside of the complex patent landscape that describes and protects antibody drug discovery. soloMERs are the smallest (9% of the size of an antibody) and most robust naturally occurring binding domain, which makes them ideal for binding to intracellular targets. The company’s technology has been endorsed through partnerships with Almac, Amgen, and Merck.

Elasmogen is unique in its capacity to isolate and develop soloMERs, with a multi-layered IP position covering the platform, products, and process, including an exclusive license to over 20 patents granted in the US, Europe, and other territories together with the entire know-how and VNAR pipeline from the Scottish Biologics Facility, University of Aberdeen. For more information, visit www.Elasmogen.com.

Feldan Therapeutic is a Canadian company dedicated to the development of regenerative medicine therapeutic applications based on the Feldan Shuttle platform, a breakthrough peptide-based delivery method that allows the introduction of foreign proteins inside cells. The Feldan Shuttle overcomes delivery obstacles in therapeutic context by providing a safe and highly efficient approach that alleviates manipulation complexity and that is associated with low regulatory burden. The Shuttle platform has been successfully used to transfer active nucleases and transcription factors inside several types of cells; moreover, preliminary results in rodents suggest that the Shuttle has a promising potential for in vivo applications. Work is currently ongoing to further develop the Shuttle technology in order to promote the internalization of antibodies (or antibody-like domains) to modulate cellular pathways. In addition, Feldan has an in-house therapeutic pipeline centered on the generation of hyperactive NK cells for oncology applications.For more information, visit www.feldan.com.