PolyTherics Limited, an Abzena company that provides technologies and services to enable the development of better biopharmaceuticals, has collaborated with Alpha Cancer Technologies Inc. (ACT), a Canadian company with a targeted drug delivery platform based on alpha fetoprotein (AFP). PolyTherics will produce a range of AFP drug conjugates for ACT to test using its proprietary ThioBridge technology.

ACT has developed a novel drug delivery system based on AFP, a shuttle protein that binds to AFP receptors, which are present in large amounts on the majority of cancer cells but only rarely on healthy cells.  AFP has been studied extensively and has been shown to be safe in Phase I and II clinical studies involving over 400 patients. ACT's lead product (ACT-901), which is in preclinical development, will use AFP initially to deliver paclitaxel to ovarian tumours.

PolyTherics has developed ThioBridge for site-specific conjugation of cytotoxic payloads to disulfide bonds in proteins and antibodies to provide more stable and less heterogeneous drug conjugates. Under the collaboration PolyTherics will conjugate AFP to a derivative of a known cytotoxic drug using ThioBridge to produce a range of different drug conjugates for testing.  

John Burt, chief executive officer, of Abzena, commented: "We are excited to be working with ACT and to be a part of the renaissance in interest in AFP as a delivery platform and look forward to helping produce better drug conjugates to treat cancer."

Igor Sherman, cief executive officer, of ACT, said: "We are looking forward to our collaboration with PolyTherics which will allow us to expand our product pipeline using ThioBridge technology.  This technology represents an exceptional strategic fit for ACT in our efforts to bring forward targeted cancer treatments which have the potential to significantly improve cancer care for many patients."