arGEN-X N.V, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focussed on creating and developing differentiated therapeutic antibodies for the treatment of cancer and severe autoimmune diseases, has initiated its Innovative Access Programme, providing its SIMPLE Antibody platform to academic centres of excellence and emerging biotech companies through collaboration. The goal of this programme is to exploit the proven power of the SIMPLE Antibody platform in therapeutic areas complementary to arGEN-X’s strategic focus.
The first Innovative Access Programme collaborations are with an unnamed US-based biotechnology company active in the field of dyslipidemia research and with the de Duve Institute (Université Catholique de Louvain - Belgium) in the field of cancer immunotherapy.
“Our SIMPLE Antibody technology has far greater therapeutic potential than we can possibly exploit alone,” says Debbie Allen, VP Business Development arGEN-X. “Whilst our strategic focus is on the discovery and development of novel antibody products for the treatment of cancer and severe autoimmune diseases, we are very excited to have launched our Innovative Access Programme to extend our reach into multiple therapeutic areas. The Innovative Access Program is configured around flexible, collaborative terms, giving us a strategic position in the future commercial success of developed assets. We see the Innovative Access Programme not only as a significant benefit to academia and emerging biotech companies, but also to arGEN-X as a potential driver of value creation.”
The Innovative Access Programme leverages the proven power of the SIMPLE Antibody platform in creating best-in-class antibodies across multiple therapeutic areas. Through collaboration with academic centers of excellence and emerging biotech companies, arGEN-X will provide access to its antibody discovery technologies and offer technical support and proprietary know-how where needed. Deal structures are designed to be flexible.
Under the terms of the agreement with the US-based biotech company, arGEN-X will provide access to its suite of antibody discovery technologies and offer technical know-how and expertise. In return, arGEN-X will receive a share in the future commercial success of any asset utilising the arGEN-X technology. Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.
The collaboration with the de Duve Institute (Université Catholique de Louvain – Belgium) was initiated for the use of the SIMPLE AntibodyTM platform and technical expertise of arGEN-X to validate a novel immune checkpoint target, GARP. arGEN-X will have the rights, following an upcoming predefined milestone, to exercise an option to exclusively in-licence GARP-targeting antibodies for further development and commercialisation as part of its proprietary product pipeline.