Affilogic, a privately-owned biotech company, announced the signature of a collaboration and license agreement with Sanofi, a global healthcare leader, for the development of Nanofitin-conjugated biotherapeutics.

In the framework of a research collaboration initiated in 2012, Affilogic applied its alternative scaffold technology, the Nanofitins, for a joint discovery and development of Nanofitins against an undisclosed target nominated by Sanofi. Affilogic selected Nanofitin candidates from their proprietary libraries for subsequent conjugation to Sanofi proprietary molecules.

Under the research collaboration and licensing agreement, Affilogic and Sanofi will combine research efforts to establish optimized Nanofitin-conjugated biotherapeutics and carry out further preclinical development of conjugates. Sanofi has obtained exclusivity on 2 different Nanofitin families and will have sole responsibility for all clinical development and commercial activities of such Nanofitin-conjugated biotherapeutics.

Under the terms of the agreement, Affilogic will grant worldwide exclusive rights to all the development projects and is entitled to receive research funding, future milestones payments and royalties for each conjugate. Details on the Nanofitin target or indications are not disclosed by the partners.

“We’re very proud to announce this collaboration with Sanofi. This is an important step forward to demonstrate the potency of our Nanofitin platform with a leading pharmaceutical company,” said Olivier Kitten, chief executive officer of Affilogic. “With Sanofi, Affilogic has found an ideal partner to raise value to our technology and generate Nanofitin-conjugate drugs.”

Nanofitins are small affinity proteins that can be easily conjugated to other moieties (small molecule, biologics, nanoparticles) by genetic fusion or standard chemistry (regio-selective conjugation). This enables to consider a Nanofitin not only as a neutralizing agent but also as a vector to increase target-specificity or an agent to empower third parties’ molecules.