Imperial Innovations : Crescendo Biologics granted US patent for transgenic mouse platform

Published on Wednesday 28th September 2016Sector: TherapeuticsCategory: Portfolio Progress

Imperial Innovations notes that its portfolio company, Crescendo Biologics, the drug discovery company and developer of Humabody® therapeutics, has been granted U.S. patent No. 9,439,405 to its novel transgenic mouse platform (Crescendo Mouse) for generating Humabody® drug products.

The patent covers mice which do not produce functional endogenous antibody lambda light chains due to deletions in the lambda light chain locus. This is a key component of the Crescendo Mouse which produces fully human VH domains in a proprietary 'triple knockout' background devoid of mouse antibodies. This means that VH domains are affinity matured in vivo in the absence of any contaminating endogenous antibody light chains and as such are naturally filtered for highly attractive biophysical properties.

Based on these robust Humabody® building blocks, Crescendo is able to rapidly assemble an almost limitless number of multispecific configurations. Crescendo can then identify optimal formats for engaging therapeutically valuable targets in a way that is fundamentally different than using whole Immunoglobulins.

Barbara Fleck, Head of IP of Crescendo Biologics, commented:
'This important piece of IP further strengthens our patent portfolio. We have built an exceptionally powerful platform for the generation of fully human VH domains which provide robust building blocks for the generation of mono- and multi-specific Humabody® products.'

Dr Peter Pack, CEO of Crescendo Biologics, said:
'We are building a pipeline of differentiated, potent therapeutics of minimal size that leverages our proprietary technology platform. We are seeking to address the issues of current biologics based on conventional IgGs with rapidly configured multi-specific Humabody® therapeutics.

'Our design is based on fully human VH building blocks from our transgenic mouse without the inherent risks of artificial scaffolds. This results in improved therapeutic index options which we combine with excellent potency and druggability.'

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