Exopharm Limited announced that it will initiate technology transfer of its proprietary and patented Ligand-based Exosome Affinity Purification (LEAPTM) platform to AIRM. This second Phase of work will enable AIRM to further evaluate Exopharm's LEAP technology for the isolation of exosomes. In addition to Exopharm's LEAP purification technology, AIRM will be able to use two other Exopharm technologies ¡ EVPS and LOAD.

EVPS technology from Exopharm could enable AIRM to develop and evaluate surface-engineered exosomes. Exopharm's LOAD technology could enable AIRM to load functional RNA into exosomes derived from AIRM cells. Astellas colleagues has demonstrated the company's technologies.

As part of the multi-stage research collaboration, Exopharm conducted the initial stage at its research facilities in Melbourne, Australia, using its LEAP technology to purify exosomes derived from two proprietary AIRM cell lines. Exopharm has three proprietary technologies that Astellas has rights to use: The LEAP exosome purification and biomanufacturing process provides a highly scalable purification capability for exosome product manufacture. Extracellular Vesicle Positioning System (EVPS) technology enables the addition of engineered tissue-tropic moieties to exosomes.

EVPS enables surface engineering of exosomes for targeting exosomes to specific tissues and cells. LOAD is used to encapsulate a broad array of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) for immune-silent delivery and opens up the use of exosomes as a drug-delivery chassis to deliver a broad array of APIs, such as RNA, DNA, AAV, and CRISPR innovations.