British Drug Developer Forges Another Antibody Alliance this Year

British Drug Developer Forges Another Antibody Alliance this Year

British drug developer Heptares Therapeutics and mAb maker Kymab Ltd have partnered up in yet another immuno-oncology collaboration. The companies plan to discover antibody meds targeting a superfamily of receptors.

London-based Heptares, which was taken over by Japanese biopharma play Sosei for €352m last year, is in the business of developing therapeutics targeting G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), a “superfamily of receptors linked to a wide range of human diseases”, the company writes.

Now, Heptares has teamed up with Kymab, one of the leaders in the development of human monoclonal antibody discovery. Heptares will apply its StaR platform to creat antigens based on GPCR targets. Kymab will then use its human antibody discovery platform Kymouse to generate antibodies in response to immunisation with these antigens. Promising leads will be developed further, with costs and profits shared between the partners.

GPCRs are widely expressed on cells of the innate and adaptive immune system. They play key roles in modulating cell migration and recruitment to the tumour environment, activation, survival, proliferation and differentiation. Heptares and Kymab believe that GPCRs act at critical checkpoints that can be targeted by novel immunotherapy antibodies. However, immuno-oncology is only the

initial target, the partners may branch out to other biologics.

“GPCRs have long been intractable targets for antibody discovery resulting in dearth of products,” said Malcolm Weir, Chairman and CEO of Heptares. “We believe that our proven StaR technology can unlock this substantial opportunity, not just in immuno-oncology but also across other therapeutic…We have the potential to discover, develop and commercialise a highly valuable pipeline of new biologic products.”

David Chiswell, CEO of Kymab, added, “Antibodies are important therapeutic agents for cancer and other indications.  Our collaboration with Heptares will allow us to combine stable antigens based on multiple GPCR targets with our world-class Kymouse platform, which has unparalleled diversity and will therefore rapidly identify and yield highly selective potent human monoclonal antibodies for unmet medical needs.”