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.