Tuesday, December 18, 2012
Big biotech donation in Geneva
As mentioned before on this blog, Merck has shut down research facilities in Geneva. However, with a major donation from billionaires Hansjörg Wyss and Ernesto Bertarelli, in cooperation with EPFL and the University of Geneva, they have purchased the building to create a biotech research centre focusing on healthcare, biotechnology and life sciences. More info...
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Vifor Pharma
Today I wanted to read and write a bit about a fairly large biotech company that also has R&D in Switzerland - Vifor. Unlike other companies that I have written about, Vifor (it appears) does a lot of clinical trials. They have several laboratories in Switzerland doing R&D, in St. Gallen, Geneva and around Fribourg and Zurich. Interestingly, they also have a research lab in Victoria Canada, a small city on Vancouver Island described as the home for the 'newly wed and nearly dead'. But I digress...
A main focus of Vifor is their activities in iron deficiency which is where they started. They also have a consumer division with over the counter (OTC) products. They also use the acronym OTX, a combination of over the counter and prescription. I'm not sure if it could be where OTC drugs are reimbursed by the health care system which would make it an interesting business area.
One thing that caught my attention is their Broncho-Vaxom and Uro-Vaxom products. These are extracts of bacteria that work by stimulating the immune system and are originally from OM Pharma (bought and integrated into Vifor Pharma in 2009). It looks like there is a bit of research, and some small clinical studies, but I'd be interested in seeing more robust results and just how well it really works.
A main focus of Vifor is their activities in iron deficiency which is where they started. They also have a consumer division with over the counter (OTC) products. They also use the acronym OTX, a combination of over the counter and prescription. I'm not sure if it could be where OTC drugs are reimbursed by the health care system which would make it an interesting business area.
One thing that caught my attention is their Broncho-Vaxom and Uro-Vaxom products. These are extracts of bacteria that work by stimulating the immune system and are originally from OM Pharma (bought and integrated into Vifor Pharma in 2009). It looks like there is a bit of research, and some small clinical studies, but I'd be interested in seeing more robust results and just how well it really works.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Biognosys
Biognosys is a proteomics company located in Zurich and founded in 2008 by Dr. Oliver Rinner, Dr. Johan Malström, Dr. Philipp Antoni and Prof. Ruedi Aebersold, so it looks like it was spun out ETH.
Biognosys is looking to make it in the field of personalized medicine, something which is of great interest to pharmaceutical companies. The idea being (in the post-blockbuster world) you find a drug that works best on only a subset of the population. If you test this drug in clinical trials with all possible patients, it may not show significant results, but if you have a subset of responders, you could then market your drug to that smaller subset. So, no big blockbuster, but instead of a rejection you get a drug on the market. Of course, key to this is to identify which population responds to the drug.
Biognosys performs mass spec analysis on protein samples, including identification of modified peptides (for example you could identify protein phosphorylation) and they have complex evaluation software for the interpretation of the massive amount of data generated. To extend the technology past screening for personalized medicine, Biognosys wants to offer a 'protein passport', a yearly screening of your entire blood protein content. This seems like a decent business plan, yearly screening! However, as recently seen in the PSA screening debate, and the older breast-screening debate, over-screening can be a serious problem. Are changes you observe in your blood a natural result of ageing or change in diet or countless other reasons. Good validated markers are hard to find (and quite valuable). However, I think the method could provide interesting data for the characterization of population norms (kind of like the 1000 genome project). Maybe with enough characterization good markers can come out of the research.
Biognosys is looking to make it in the field of personalized medicine, something which is of great interest to pharmaceutical companies. The idea being (in the post-blockbuster world) you find a drug that works best on only a subset of the population. If you test this drug in clinical trials with all possible patients, it may not show significant results, but if you have a subset of responders, you could then market your drug to that smaller subset. So, no big blockbuster, but instead of a rejection you get a drug on the market. Of course, key to this is to identify which population responds to the drug.
Biognosys performs mass spec analysis on protein samples, including identification of modified peptides (for example you could identify protein phosphorylation) and they have complex evaluation software for the interpretation of the massive amount of data generated. To extend the technology past screening for personalized medicine, Biognosys wants to offer a 'protein passport', a yearly screening of your entire blood protein content. This seems like a decent business plan, yearly screening! However, as recently seen in the PSA screening debate, and the older breast-screening debate, over-screening can be a serious problem. Are changes you observe in your blood a natural result of ageing or change in diet or countless other reasons. Good validated markers are hard to find (and quite valuable). However, I think the method could provide interesting data for the characterization of population norms (kind of like the 1000 genome project). Maybe with enough characterization good markers can come out of the research.
Wednesday, November 14, 2012
Anergis
Anergis was founded by Professor Francois Spertini (a professor at UNIL, another Lausanne University) in 2001. It is located in the new technology park Biopole, in Lausanne (in the French side of Switzerland). Anergis is developing an improvement on SIT, Specific Immunotherapy. SIT is an allergy treatment that works by developing immune tolerance in the patient through vaccination with increasing doses of the problem allergen. SIT usually takes several years and many vaccinations because the allergen dose must be below a critical threshold where an allergic reaction would be generated.
Anergis is attempting to improve SIT through the use of peptides. Rather than immunizing with the entire protein, they immunize with peptides which cover the length of the entire protein. Anergis claims that with the peptide therapeutic, they do not invoke an allergic response and so can use higher doses of allergen in the therapy. A higher dose makes immune tolerance develop faster and so Anergis claims they can perform SIT within months instead of years. Anergis has just started in phase II of clinical trails for their vaccine developed against Birch.
Anergis is attempting to improve SIT through the use of peptides. Rather than immunizing with the entire protein, they immunize with peptides which cover the length of the entire protein. Anergis claims that with the peptide therapeutic, they do not invoke an allergic response and so can use higher doses of allergen in the therapy. A higher dose makes immune tolerance develop faster and so Anergis claims they can perform SIT within months instead of years. Anergis has just started in phase II of clinical trails for their vaccine developed against Birch.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Redbiotec
Redbiotec is a small company located near Zurich spun out from ETH in 2006 by Christian Schaub and Dr. Corinne John and is focused on developing vaccines (currently their pipeline is all preclinical).
Redbiotec develops virus-like particles (VLPs) which are non-replicating and allow surface protein expression, thus making them very useful as vaccines. Redbiotec constructs the VLPs using a co-expression system. Usually when proteins are expressed in the lab a one-promoter one-protein one-plasmid system is used. If you want to express several proteins together you can try to find enough plasmids which are compatible or you can try and put all the proteins into one plasmid. I have done multi-expression before, using a promoter and an IRES sequence in E. coli and it worked very well.
The Redbiotec system is based on the MultiBac system developed at ETH and you can express up to 10 different proteins with specific promoters (doesn't look like a system that utilizes IRES so it could probably be better controlled). It is based on the baculovirus expression system where protein is expressed in insect cells. One thing that isn't really detailed is what exactly goes into the virus like particle. Can the system express membrane bound proteins and are they working on this? Some of the viruses they are developing vaccines for are enveloped.
Redbiotec is funded in part by the venture capitalist group Redalpine. I see that the 3D microculture company InSphero I wrote about earlier is also funded by Redalpine. In addition to their own vaccine pipeline, Redbiotec also partners with other pharma and biotech companies. They describe their work in three general areas, vaccines, using the VLPs to help cancer therapeutics and to develop VLPs that express targets for antibody engineering.
Redbiotec develops virus-like particles (VLPs) which are non-replicating and allow surface protein expression, thus making them very useful as vaccines. Redbiotec constructs the VLPs using a co-expression system. Usually when proteins are expressed in the lab a one-promoter one-protein one-plasmid system is used. If you want to express several proteins together you can try to find enough plasmids which are compatible or you can try and put all the proteins into one plasmid. I have done multi-expression before, using a promoter and an IRES sequence in E. coli and it worked very well.
The Redbiotec system is based on the MultiBac system developed at ETH and you can express up to 10 different proteins with specific promoters (doesn't look like a system that utilizes IRES so it could probably be better controlled). It is based on the baculovirus expression system where protein is expressed in insect cells. One thing that isn't really detailed is what exactly goes into the virus like particle. Can the system express membrane bound proteins and are they working on this? Some of the viruses they are developing vaccines for are enveloped.
Redbiotec is funded in part by the venture capitalist group Redalpine. I see that the 3D microculture company InSphero I wrote about earlier is also funded by Redalpine. In addition to their own vaccine pipeline, Redbiotec also partners with other pharma and biotech companies. They describe their work in three general areas, vaccines, using the VLPs to help cancer therapeutics and to develop VLPs that express targets for antibody engineering.
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Arisgen
A different kind of company this time, Arisgen doesn't develop the drugs, but rather the delivery systems. Arisgen was founded in 2006 by Dr. Paolo Botti and is currently located in the Eclosion incubator near Geneva.
The challenge with peptide and protein drugs is that they usually need to be injected and it can be a challenge to get them to cross the cell membrane. One way to get the peptide or protein to enter the cell is to attach it to a cell penetrating peptide found through work on HIV. There are problems with this method such as uncertainty of the exact mechanism of entry and that this method further increases the size of the drug.
A different method developed by Arisgen is to modify the peptide so making it more soluble and able to cross the epithilium. There are few details on the Arisgen webpage but it appears to be some ... compound that masks the functional groups of the amino acids and then the entire thing is wrapped in a lipid for delivery. They currently claim this technique is in preclinical trails.
In addition to crossing the epithilium, Arisgen has developed another technology to get peptides to cross the cell membrane. As described on their webpage:
The challenge with peptide and protein drugs is that they usually need to be injected and it can be a challenge to get them to cross the cell membrane. One way to get the peptide or protein to enter the cell is to attach it to a cell penetrating peptide found through work on HIV. There are problems with this method such as uncertainty of the exact mechanism of entry and that this method further increases the size of the drug.
A different method developed by Arisgen is to modify the peptide so making it more soluble and able to cross the epithilium. There are few details on the Arisgen webpage but it appears to be some ... compound that masks the functional groups of the amino acids and then the entire thing is wrapped in a lipid for delivery. They currently claim this technique is in preclinical trails.
In addition to crossing the epithilium, Arisgen has developed another technology to get peptides to cross the cell membrane. As described on their webpage:
...the intracellular delivery via reversible attachment of biocompatible polymers and bio-functional moieties to the peptide. Once into the cytosol, the cell’s naturally present esterases release the original active compound.And it also appears that Arisgen also has a CTI grant. CTI appears everywhere with SME's in Switzerland! I wonder how much the CTI increases Switzerland's competitiveness, especially given the strength of the Swiss Franc in recent years and the high cost of labour in Switzerland.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Covagen with Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation
Covagen has just recently announced a partnership with Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation to develop bispecific Fynomer binders against two target pairs selected by Mitsubishi Tanabe and will be paid EUR 4 million upfront.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Pharma Lemmings
Speaking of mergers and acquisitions, an interesting read on the In Vivo blog about the state of the industry regarding comments by Wall Street analyst Raghuram Selveraju (with additional commentary by Derek Lowe). Big Pharma is facing the patent cliff as their most profitable compounds come out of patent protection. The general story is a shutting down of research at Big Pharma (demonstrated in the thousands of jobs lost in the last few years). With a sense of desperation, it appears Big Pharma intends to fill their pipelines with work from biotech or outsourcing.
The In Vivo blog writes:
The In Vivo blog closes with:
The In Vivo blog writes:
That desperation leads to the repetition of familiar mistakes which derive from the predictable thinking of too many business development executives at big pharma, Selveraju opined. First, when looking for licensing opportunities, pharmas very often seek out their comfort zone – a potential product for which they can deploy an existing sales force or promote to doctors they already know and communicate with. Also, to be confident in an experimental drug’s preclinical and clinical data, pharmas often want to go into areas where their competitors also have a compound as well as into validated targets.The interesting quote to me is the "too many business development executives". I wonder how much of that is true.
The In Vivo blog closes with:
What then is Selveraju’s prescription for better business development practices? It might disappoint those who want pharma to be in the vanguard of innovation. He recommends incremental innovation – using FDA’s 505b2 pathway to develop products with already defined efficacy and safety – as well as biosimilars and re-purposing. Pharma also should focus on niche and specialty indications, and largely eliminate primary care products and the large commercial operations that come with them.Hmmm, doesn't sound like a plan to cure diseases of the world. I wonder where the innovation will come from then, and who will pay for it?
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Addex Therapeutics
Addex Therapeutics, located in Geneva, was founded in 2002 by Vincent Mutel and others when he left Roche (he left Addex in 2011). Addex is focused on finding and developing small molecule drugs which are allosteric and target G-Protein Coupled Receptors, receptor tyrosine kinases and cytokine receptors. Allosteric regulators bind at sites other than the active site of proteins and can both activate or inhibit protein function. To the best of my knowledge (and what they say on the webpage), it is difficult to screen for this kind of interaction.
I can't find very much information about the screens for their allosteric modulators, nothing much comes up in the publications and very little detail is supplied on their webpage. Given that one system looks at a dynamic, direct effect in real-time on the receptor, and that the screen is called ProxyLite, I would hazard a guess in at least one screen they are looking at FRET between two fluorescent proteins or something similar.
They have also developed a compound library which they claim to be biased towards allosteric drugs (as of 2009 it had 70,000 compounds). Addex Therapeutics describes a challenge with developing these drugs is because usually the allosteric binding site is in the transmembrane part of the receptor which requires a type of compound 'greasy' enough to stick to the site, but with good enough (soluble enough) properties to travel in the body to site.
Addex Therapeutics also has several compounds advancing in clinical and preclinical trials, some with their partner Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Their most advanced has finished phase IIa. They also are part of the ubiquitous CTI, just recently receiving a grant together with EPFL and UNIL to develop allosteric modulator therapeutics for neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases.
Interestingly, Addex went public in 2007 (IPO on the Swiss stock exchange), that's only 5 years after starting up. Usually in biotech the 'exit strategy' for companies is some kind of M&A, mergers and acquisitions with the goal of being bought out by a large pharma company.
I can't find very much information about the screens for their allosteric modulators, nothing much comes up in the publications and very little detail is supplied on their webpage. Given that one system looks at a dynamic, direct effect in real-time on the receptor, and that the screen is called ProxyLite, I would hazard a guess in at least one screen they are looking at FRET between two fluorescent proteins or something similar.
They have also developed a compound library which they claim to be biased towards allosteric drugs (as of 2009 it had 70,000 compounds). Addex Therapeutics describes a challenge with developing these drugs is because usually the allosteric binding site is in the transmembrane part of the receptor which requires a type of compound 'greasy' enough to stick to the site, but with good enough (soluble enough) properties to travel in the body to site.
Addex Therapeutics also has several compounds advancing in clinical and preclinical trials, some with their partner Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Their most advanced has finished phase IIa. They also are part of the ubiquitous CTI, just recently receiving a grant together with EPFL and UNIL to develop allosteric modulator therapeutics for neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases.
Interestingly, Addex went public in 2007 (IPO on the Swiss stock exchange), that's only 5 years after starting up. Usually in biotech the 'exit strategy' for companies is some kind of M&A, mergers and acquisitions with the goal of being bought out by a large pharma company.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Neurix
Neurix is a small start-up company from the University of Geneva located in Geneva in the startup park Eclosion. It was started in 2011 by Prof. Karl-Heinz Krause and Prof. Luc Stoppini
According to the Venture summary sheet -pdf (as of 2011), Neurix has a company size of 2.2 FTE (full time equivalents), so it is very much in the startup phase.
They currently have two funded projects listed on their webpage, a CTI grant in collaboration with the University of Geneva, and they are part of an FP7 project. The FP7 project is called NEURINOX and will be used to screen compounds, and the example they give is NOX. One of the partners in this project is Genkyotex Innovation (a French company owned by the Swiss company Genkyotex) which makes the NOX inhibitors for testing and was also started by Prof. Karl-Heinz Krause in 2006.
According to the Venture summary sheet -pdf (as of 2011), Neurix has a company size of 2.2 FTE (full time equivalents), so it is very much in the startup phase.
They currently have two funded projects listed on their webpage, a CTI grant in collaboration with the University of Geneva, and they are part of an FP7 project. The FP7 project is called NEURINOX and will be used to screen compounds, and the example they give is NOX. One of the partners in this project is Genkyotex Innovation (a French company owned by the Swiss company Genkyotex) which makes the NOX inhibitors for testing and was also started by Prof. Karl-Heinz Krause in 2006.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Meet the Swiss CRO community - Nov 8th in Bern
An event to meet members of the CRO community organized by the Swiss Biotech association, details on their webpage.
More events organized by Swiss Biotech detailed in their upcoming events pdf.
More events organized by Swiss Biotech detailed in their upcoming events pdf.
Monday, October 8, 2012
FGen
FGen is a new start-up created in 2011 and located in Basel, it is a spin-off from the ETH, specifically the D-BSSE department which is in Basel (instead of Zurich with the rest of ETH). FGen is focused on the development of high throughput screens based on the work of (and founded by) Prof. Sven Panke.
The technology of FGen, based on nanoliter reactors, is used for screening assays that FGen develops with collaborators. Based on what I've read in the publications, to make the nanoliter reactors, cells are resuspended in an alginate gel which is separated into beads using a laminar jet break-up encapsulator. Once the cells are isolated into the beads, they can be treated together but held separately (i.e. do PCR by soaking all the beads in the reagents and put them all together in a thermocycler). This is significantly better than other methods where cells are cultured individually in wells (which takes a lot of 96-well plates!). With the beads, there are many different ways to screen described on the FGen webpage and of these I think the buoyancy-difference screen is really cool! Details of the system and screens, including the buoyancy-difference screen are detailed in this ETH dissertation - pdf.
While the company appears to be small and in the 'developing the technology' stage, the associated lab at D-BSSE has a CTI associated success story partnered with DSM Nutritional Products. Together they developed a screen for production of vitamin B2 (read the success story - pdf).
The technology of FGen, based on nanoliter reactors, is used for screening assays that FGen develops with collaborators. Based on what I've read in the publications, to make the nanoliter reactors, cells are resuspended in an alginate gel which is separated into beads using a laminar jet break-up encapsulator. Once the cells are isolated into the beads, they can be treated together but held separately (i.e. do PCR by soaking all the beads in the reagents and put them all together in a thermocycler). This is significantly better than other methods where cells are cultured individually in wells (which takes a lot of 96-well plates!). With the beads, there are many different ways to screen described on the FGen webpage and of these I think the buoyancy-difference screen is really cool! Details of the system and screens, including the buoyancy-difference screen are detailed in this ETH dissertation - pdf.
While the company appears to be small and in the 'developing the technology' stage, the associated lab at D-BSSE has a CTI associated success story partnered with DSM Nutritional Products. Together they developed a screen for production of vitamin B2 (read the success story - pdf).
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Polyphor
Founded in 1996, Polyphor is a company in Basel developing drugs only slightly larger than small molecule drugs and their focus is on the disruption of protein-protein interactions. These kinds of interactions are more difficult to disrupt because of the shape of the interaction. Usually, to disrupt an enzyme, you need a small molecule that can slip into the active site. However, protein-protein interactions are typically bigger and may require a larger drug to disrupt. Protein therapeutics such as DARPins and antibodies are good at targeting protein-protein interactions, but their larger size has a cost. It may be difficult to design a drug that can enter cells, cross the blood-brain barrier, or can be taken orally.
Polyphor participates in partnerships with companies to develop their small therapeutics against the clients chosen targets. The most recent annoucement has been a partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim (who recently shut down virology research in Montreal Canada).
Polyphor also develops their own compounds against drug targets and have several in clinical trials, with the most advanced in phase II. They are also clearly moving forward with clinical trails since they have a job posting for a clinical development project manager.
Polyphor has two technologies, MacroFinder and PEMfinder. MacroFinder is a synthetic system to develop libraries of rings, sounds like combinatorial chemistry to me. PEMfiner is based on PEMs, developed by Prof. J. A. Robinson at the University of Zurich (yes, Zurich has not only federal ETH but also their own university). PEMs are cyclic peptides with specific short structural motifs (such as a hairpin turn), and it appears that Prof. Robinson has developed the Pseudomonas aeruginosa inhibitor that is currently in clinical trials at Polyphor. The peptide portion of PEMs can first be developed using phage display, and then the peptide sequence transfered to their synthesis platform. I guess at that point the PEMs are cyclized (and are not cyclized during phage display).
Polyphor participates in partnerships with companies to develop their small therapeutics against the clients chosen targets. The most recent annoucement has been a partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim (who recently shut down virology research in Montreal Canada).
Polyphor also develops their own compounds against drug targets and have several in clinical trials, with the most advanced in phase II. They are also clearly moving forward with clinical trails since they have a job posting for a clinical development project manager.
Polyphor has two technologies, MacroFinder and PEMfinder. MacroFinder is a synthetic system to develop libraries of rings, sounds like combinatorial chemistry to me. PEMfiner is based on PEMs, developed by Prof. J. A. Robinson at the University of Zurich (yes, Zurich has not only federal ETH but also their own university). PEMs are cyclic peptides with specific short structural motifs (such as a hairpin turn), and it appears that Prof. Robinson has developed the Pseudomonas aeruginosa inhibitor that is currently in clinical trials at Polyphor. The peptide portion of PEMs can first be developed using phage display, and then the peptide sequence transfered to their synthesis platform. I guess at that point the PEMs are cyclized (and are not cyclized during phage display).
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Abionic
Abionic is a spin-off from the biomedical optics laboratory of EPFL (the ETH twin in Lausanne). It is an allergy diagnostics company developing a point-of-care instrument which can be placed in a doctors office allowing a quick result instead of waiting days for a lab test. From what I can read from papers from the lab, the instrument works on differing diffusion rates of compounds through small channels, and a slower diffusion rate indicates an interaction with whatever is coated in the channel. I'd be really interested to see some standard curves.
Abionic was founded in 2010 and already has ISO 13485 certification for the production of a medical device, which is pretty impressive since I've heard it can take about a year to write out everything. ISO is a quality management standard, meaning that you have quality control checks over all parts of your process (ie you have detailed quality control procedures and methods to ensure they are followed, you have standard procedures for how to change a standard operating procedure, you have methods for checking where problems are if a quality error is reported etc). However, an ISO standard is not how good your product is, just that you produce it consistently. An ISO standard for a medical diagnostics device is important for FDA clearance, a regulatory hurdle that Abionic has already cleared.
And a further note about cutting and pasting on the internet. In some fairly nice documents I've seen a few times this sentence: "The young company has developed a device that can is gaining confidence in the doctor’s office." That can is gaining? What does that even mean. Cut and paste without editing....
Abionic was founded in 2010 and already has ISO 13485 certification for the production of a medical device, which is pretty impressive since I've heard it can take about a year to write out everything. ISO is a quality management standard, meaning that you have quality control checks over all parts of your process (ie you have detailed quality control procedures and methods to ensure they are followed, you have standard procedures for how to change a standard operating procedure, you have methods for checking where problems are if a quality error is reported etc). However, an ISO standard is not how good your product is, just that you produce it consistently. An ISO standard for a medical diagnostics device is important for FDA clearance, a regulatory hurdle that Abionic has already cleared.
And a further note about cutting and pasting on the internet. In some fairly nice documents I've seen a few times this sentence: "The young company has developed a device that can is gaining confidence in the doctor’s office." That can is gaining? What does that even mean. Cut and paste without editing....
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Prexton Therapeutics
As promised, a company from the French side of Switzerland!
Earlier this year, Merck Serono announced it would close facilities in Geneva. As part of this closure, they also announced they would create a startup fund. One of the startups generated from this is Prexton Therapeutics (which is so new it doesn't even have a webpage yet). A search of the company registry reveals they were incorporated at the end of July of this year and interviews state they will be populated with scientists who used to work at Merck Serono.
As I mentioned and unlike other companies I have profiled so far on this blog, this one is at the very beginnings. Although, they are also rather ahead in the game. According to the In Vivo blog:
The targets of Prexton Therapeutics are the metabotropic glutamate receptors mGluR3 and mGluR4, targets for Parkinson's disease. As pointed out in the In Vivo blog post, Prexton Therapeutics has similar targets as Addex Therapeutics, which have a Parkinson's drug currently finished with Phase IIa trials. Addexx Therapeutics was formed with Francois Conquet as the chief executive officer and he is also a founder of Prexton Therapeutics. Both companies are (will be) located in the start-up incubator Eclosion.
Earlier this year, Merck Serono announced it would close facilities in Geneva. As part of this closure, they also announced they would create a startup fund. One of the startups generated from this is Prexton Therapeutics (which is so new it doesn't even have a webpage yet). A search of the company registry reveals they were incorporated at the end of July of this year and interviews state they will be populated with scientists who used to work at Merck Serono.
As I mentioned and unlike other companies I have profiled so far on this blog, this one is at the very beginnings. Although, they are also rather ahead in the game. According to the In Vivo blog:
Prexton will work with preclinical compounds discovered at Merck Serono, says founder and CEO Francois Conquet, who estimated the company will start out about 18 months away from entering clinical development.A search of the founders of the company reveal several close associations with Merck Serono Ventures (Roel Bulthuis is the head). I couldn't find information about the fate of Merck Serono Ventures with the closure of the Geneva facilities.
The targets of Prexton Therapeutics are the metabotropic glutamate receptors mGluR3 and mGluR4, targets for Parkinson's disease. As pointed out in the In Vivo blog post, Prexton Therapeutics has similar targets as Addex Therapeutics, which have a Parkinson's drug currently finished with Phase IIa trials. Addexx Therapeutics was formed with Francois Conquet as the chief executive officer and he is also a founder of Prexton Therapeutics. Both companies are (will be) located in the start-up incubator Eclosion.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Sunday, September 9, 2012
InSphero
InSphero is a company located close to Zurich in the Technopark, also spun off from ETH in 2009. Hmmm, next post will come from the romande side, I've got an interesting recent spin-off in Geneva to talk about next. Digression aside, InSphero sounds pretty futuristic. They develop 3D micro-tissues using a method of hanging-drop and they have many collaborators. The advantage of using 3D tissue culture is since there is no cell adherence to artificial surfaces (like the plastic bottoms of tissue culture plates), it is supposed to more closely replicate tissue in its native state.
The idea of eliminating toxic compounds early in screening is very enticing, although this also creates another barrier, if it isn't accurate it could lead to elimination of compounds that might have been very good. I think Derek Lowe covers a bit of this theme nicely.
InSphero also has some interesting funding, they are part of an FP7 consortium, an interesting funding branch that I haven't heard of before, the Future and Emerging Technologies Open Schema (FET-open), founding new, fragile and innovative ideas. They have also been supported by KTI through VentureLab.
The idea of eliminating toxic compounds early in screening is very enticing, although this also creates another barrier, if it isn't accurate it could lead to elimination of compounds that might have been very good. I think Derek Lowe covers a bit of this theme nicely.
InSphero also has some interesting funding, they are part of an FP7 consortium, an interesting funding branch that I haven't heard of before, the Future and Emerging Technologies Open Schema (FET-open), founding new, fragile and innovative ideas. They have also been supported by KTI through VentureLab.
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Molecular Partners
Molecular Partners is in the news recently for striking a 62 million dollar deal with Allergan so I decided to do some research about this company.
Molecular Partners is another alternative scaffold biotechnology company and their fold of choice are the ankyrin repeat proteins based on work done by Andreas Plückthun at ETH in Zurich. These designed ankyrin repeat proteins (DARPins) are small, well produced in E. coli and can be engineered to reach high affinities. Molecular Partners has freedom to operate and a business model that is a combination of internal drug developments and partnerships with pharmaceutical companies. On their webpage, Molecular Partners claims their patents cover DARPins and other repeat proteins, without going in to the patents (yet) I speculate this includes modular leucine-rich repeat proteins which has also been investigated by Andreas Plückthun. What I like about the DARPin is the modular structure, and how you can increase potential binding area with the addition of more ankyrin repeat motifs, but at the cost of increased size.
As with Covagen Fynomers, DARPins can be strung together to create molecules with multiple specificities. The recent deal with Allergan includes MP0260, a DARPin with two specificities, although the structure of the compound is not divulged. Bi-specific binders seems to be the buzz word as of late, and a place where alternative scaffold proteins have an opportunity to shine, given the challenges of developing bi-specific antibodies, not impossible, just more challenging than genetically encoding the different blocks together. Currently Zymeworks is a company working on building bispecific antibodies.
The collaboration with Allergan has also lead to Molecular Partners' most advanced lead, in phase I/IIa clinical trials. This is one of the more advanced of the alternative scaffold proteins currently in clinical trials. I'll write more about that later one day.
More information about Molecular Partners and Allergan can be found in this EvaluatePharma article.
Molecular Partners is another alternative scaffold biotechnology company and their fold of choice are the ankyrin repeat proteins based on work done by Andreas Plückthun at ETH in Zurich. These designed ankyrin repeat proteins (DARPins) are small, well produced in E. coli and can be engineered to reach high affinities. Molecular Partners has freedom to operate and a business model that is a combination of internal drug developments and partnerships with pharmaceutical companies. On their webpage, Molecular Partners claims their patents cover DARPins and other repeat proteins, without going in to the patents (yet) I speculate this includes modular leucine-rich repeat proteins which has also been investigated by Andreas Plückthun. What I like about the DARPin is the modular structure, and how you can increase potential binding area with the addition of more ankyrin repeat motifs, but at the cost of increased size.
As with Covagen Fynomers, DARPins can be strung together to create molecules with multiple specificities. The recent deal with Allergan includes MP0260, a DARPin with two specificities, although the structure of the compound is not divulged. Bi-specific binders seems to be the buzz word as of late, and a place where alternative scaffold proteins have an opportunity to shine, given the challenges of developing bi-specific antibodies, not impossible, just more challenging than genetically encoding the different blocks together. Currently Zymeworks is a company working on building bispecific antibodies.
The collaboration with Allergan has also lead to Molecular Partners' most advanced lead, in phase I/IIa clinical trials. This is one of the more advanced of the alternative scaffold proteins currently in clinical trials. I'll write more about that later one day.
More information about Molecular Partners and Allergan can be found in this EvaluatePharma article.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
4-antibody
The company 4-Antibody is located in Basel and (as the name suggests) develops antibodies. They have a patented Retrocyte display, which lets them screen full length, native antibodies expressed in pre-B cells. A major advantage of the technology is they have the patent on the system, leaving full freedom to operate (ie no external licensing to be negotiated). 4-Antibody is located in the Technology Park Basel, home to a few companies including the biotech company NBE-Therapeutics. This company was just founded in 2012 by Ulf Grawunder, who was an original co-founder of 4-Antibody and left at the end of 2011.
In addition to their own pipeline, 4-Antibody has both commercial and academic partners and it is with their academic partner, the University of Erlangen in Germany, that they have their most advanced antibody in the pipeline, one against human Cytomegalovirus. Furthermore, 4-Antibody has expanded their discovery opportunities with a collaboration with Evotek announced this year. Together they have combined to offer an integrated antibody discovery and development service for companies that might wish to out-source their antibody discovery.
4-Antibody isn't the only company with a strategy to develop antibodies against targets as a service. GlycoFi (sold to Merck) had a similar strategy but using yeast that have been engineered with a more human glycosylation system. Adimab, another company using yeast display also provides antibodies to a company such as Arsanis.
In addition to their own pipeline, 4-Antibody has both commercial and academic partners and it is with their academic partner, the University of Erlangen in Germany, that they have their most advanced antibody in the pipeline, one against human Cytomegalovirus. Furthermore, 4-Antibody has expanded their discovery opportunities with a collaboration with Evotek announced this year. Together they have combined to offer an integrated antibody discovery and development service for companies that might wish to out-source their antibody discovery.
4-Antibody isn't the only company with a strategy to develop antibodies against targets as a service. GlycoFi (sold to Merck) had a similar strategy but using yeast that have been engineered with a more human glycosylation system. Adimab, another company using yeast display also provides antibodies to a company such as Arsanis.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Covagen
Covagen is a small, private company, located in Schlieren, close to Zurich in the Bio-Technopark and was founded in 2007 by Dr. Dragan Grabulovski and Dr. Julian Bertschinger.
Covagen is using the ‘alternative scaffold’ based on the human Fyn SH3 domain which they call Fynomers. Fynomers are part of the next step in drug development, an attempt to shrink the size of antibodies while at the same time maintaining high specificity and affinity. Development of this alternative scaffold started in the Prof. Dr. Dario Neri group at ETH. ETH is one of two Swiss federal technical Universities and also home of another alternative scaffold, the DARPins from Prof. Dr. Andreas Plückthun which have been spun off to Molecular Partners, also in the same Bio-Technopark.
Anyway, back to Covagen and Fynomers. With such a small domain, it is easy to string several together and development multi-specific binders, which is exactly what they have done with their bispecific TNF/IL-17A inhibitor. In December of 2011 they moved forward into preclinical development with this compound.
Three dimensional SH3 structure. Image generated from 4AFQ in the pdb database using PyMol.
Covagen is using the ‘alternative scaffold’ based on the human Fyn SH3 domain which they call Fynomers. Fynomers are part of the next step in drug development, an attempt to shrink the size of antibodies while at the same time maintaining high specificity and affinity. Development of this alternative scaffold started in the Prof. Dr. Dario Neri group at ETH. ETH is one of two Swiss federal technical Universities and also home of another alternative scaffold, the DARPins from Prof. Dr. Andreas Plückthun which have been spun off to Molecular Partners, also in the same Bio-Technopark.
Anyway, back to Covagen and Fynomers. With such a small domain, it is easy to string several together and development multi-specific binders, which is exactly what they have done with their bispecific TNF/IL-17A inhibitor. In December of 2011 they moved forward into preclinical development with this compound.
Three dimensional SH3 structure. Image generated from 4AFQ in the pdb database using PyMol.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Welcome!
Welcome to my Swiss Biotech blog! I'm currently working in Switzerland, interested in biotech and looking to brush up on my knowledge of the field. Hence this blog. Here I intend to put what I learn about Swiss companies, jobs you can get in biotech, funding, and other related topics.
So without further ado, I start working on my second post!
So without further ado, I start working on my second post!
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