The Antibody Society

Light Chain Bioscience | Novimmune SA has posted details for a Phase 1 dose-finding study of NILK-2301, a bispecific CEACAM5 X CD3 engaging antibody, in patients with locally advanced or metastatic low tumor volume colorectal cancer. The study is currently recruiting an estimated 25 patients. #mabs #bispecifics https://lnkd.in/enMbZpC9

In business news, GSK plc and Chimagen Biosciences, a privately held biotechnology company, announced an agreement for GSK to acquire CMG1A46, a clinical-stage dual CD19 and CD20-targeted T cell-engager, from Chimagen for $300 million upfront. GSK plans to develop and commercialise CMG1A46 with a focus on B cell-driven autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus and lupus nephritis, with potential to expand into related autoimmune diseases. CMG1A46 is currently in phase I clinical trials in leukemia and lymphoma in both the US and China. GSK aims to begin a phase I trial in lupus in 2025. Under the terms of this agreement, GSK will pay $300 million upfront to acquire full global rights to CMG1A46. In addition, Chimagen will be eligible to receive success-based development and commercial milestone payments for CMG1A46 totalling $550 million. #mabs https://lnkd.in/e9nyVUjp

We are very pleased to announce that Kristen McPike, MS, has joined The Antibody Society as a Program and Alliance Manager! Kristen is passionate about communicating science and medicine. She enjoys using the skills she developed throughout her education in Biology and Anatomy, as well as during her previous role as a Project Manager with AstraZeneca’s Lung Immuno-oncology (IO) team, to help teams and organizations work more efficiently. We wish Kristen all the best in her new role! #newhire See Kristen’s bio here: https://lnkd.in/efUCmnj

In business news, GlycoMimetics, Inc. announced it has entered into an acquisition agreement with Crescent Biopharma Inc., a privately held biotechnology company advancing a pipeline of oncology therapeutics designed to treat solid tumors. Upon completion of the transaction, the Company plans to operate under the name Crescent Biopharma, Inc. Crescent is the fifth company to launch with assets discovered and developed by Paragon Therapeutics, Inc. The Company’s lead program, CR-001, is a tetravalent PD-1 x VEGF bispecific antibody. In addition to CR-001, Crescent is developing CR-002 and CR-003, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) against undisclosed targets using topoisomerase inhibitor payloads; ADCs with topoisomerase inhibitor payloads have shown improved efficacy and safety compared to ADCs with alternative payloads. https://lnkd.in/eHRSNgjp

In business news, Kivu Bioscience, a biotech company developing next-generation antibody-drug conjugates to deliver best-in-class therapeutics, announced today the close of a $92 million Series A financing round led by Novo Holdings, with participation from Gimv, Red Tree Venture Capital, HealthCap as well as existing investors BioGeneration Ventures, M Ventures, and Brabantse Ontwikkelings Maatschappij (BOM). Kivu’s assets are in late-stage preclinical studies and target areas of high unmet medical need. The company’s platform is differentiated by its superior ability to avoid the issues seen with currently marketed ADCs and addresses key limitations related to stability and therapeutic precision and delivery. The company is set to begin Phase 1 trials for its lead candidate in 2025. #mabs #adcs https://lnkd.in/gexBkmbD

In business news, AbbVie and Aliada Therapeutics announced a definitive agreement under which AbbVie will acquire Aliada, a biotechnology company advancing therapies using a novel blood-brain barrier (BBB)-crossing technology to address challenging central nervous system (CNS) diseases. Aliada's lead investigational asset utilizing this delivery technology, ALIA-1758, is an anti-pyroglutamate amyloid beta (3pE-Aβ) antibody in development for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. This investigational candidate is currently in a Phase 1 clinical trial to assess its safety and tolerability in healthy participants (NCT06406348). https://lnkd.in/gy9zjWum

In a report newly published in mAbs, Regeneron-based authors offer their practical solutions for overcoming artificial disulfide scrambling in the non-reduced peptide mapping characterization of monoclonal antibodies. From the abstract: Non-reduced peptide mapping provides essential data for characterizing therapeutic monoclonal antibodies by isolating disulfide connections between specific cysteines. However, conventional digestive strategies used throughout the biopharmaceutical industry have been shown to cause unintentional rearrangement of disulfide connections (disulfide scrambling), thus generating connectivity profiles that do not accurately represent the protein being analyzed. Common misconceptions (e.g. avoiding basic-pH digestion to prevent disulfide scrambling) have led to the development of alternative reagents and conditions that can alleviate this issue, but yield problematic digestion profiles. Herein, we systematically and comprehensively examine the primary considerations for accurate non-reduced peptide mapping, and provide effective, practical solutions to minimize undesired behavior while still yielding high-quality digests. Additionally, we present a method that exploits intentional disulfide scrambling as a reference tool to demonstrate the robustness of our proposed strategies. We also introduce maleimide as a cysteine-alkylating reagent and demonstrate its benefits over industry-leading analogs such as N-ethylmaleimide in terms of compatibility with regulatory reports. #mabs https://lnkd.in/eSyqpyam

Thanks for sharing, Ian Wilkinson!

𝗣𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮𝗯𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘀𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲? Join AsymBio’s online webinar on 𝗢𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗯𝗲𝗿 𝟮𝟵 at 𝟭𝟬 𝗔𝗠 𝗘𝗦𝗧 to explore the innovations shaping the future of #𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗱𝗶𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘀𝗰𝘂𝗹𝗮𝗿 #𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲. Learn from Dr. David C. Zebrowski, Ph.D. (Founder & CEO, GenKardia) and Dr. Richard Nkulikiyinka (CDO & CMO, GenKardia) as they share their journeys from academic research to pioneering therapeutic breakthroughs in cardiovascular health. 🟢 Register now by 𝘀𝗰𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗤𝗥 𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲 or 𝗰𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗸 below! https://lnkd.in/e_i552Fh

Christoph Lengauer on building visionary biotech companies  Christoph Lengauer has contributed to the development of 10 FDA-approved cancer medicines. Christoph is Chief Scientific Officer and a co-founder of Curie.Bio, where he and his team co-pilot seed-stage companies to help founders to achieve series A. Prior to Curie, Christoph ideated, founded, and built several life science companies as Partner at Third Rock Ventures, including Blueprint Medicines, Relay Therapeutics, Thrive, Celsius Therapeutics, and MOMA Therapeutics. Prior to joining biotech, Christoph was global head of oncology drug discovery at Sanofi and senior unit head of oncology discovery at Novartis. He has been an Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he was involved in the identification of several cancer driver genes including PIK3CA and BRAF. As part of his research in Dr. Bert Vogelstein’s lab, Christoph discovered that all cancers are genetically unstable, which explains the molecular heterogeneity of cancer and why cancers develop resistance to drugs. He has authored more than 100 scientific articles published in top-tier scientific journals, including Cell, Nature, and Science. Christoph studied human genetics in Salzburg, Austria and obtained a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Host: Serghei Glinca Youtube: https://lnkd.in/e9BSTR2k Listen on: Apple Podcast: https://apple.co/43Zn1Hj Youtube Music: https://bit.ly/4fiFnsT Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3qqfBiB Amazon Music: https://amzn.to/3DO2kn1 Visit our website: https://lnkd.in/emJjFCcT #biotech #innovation #inspiration #entrepreneur #Therapeutics