Novel biologics portfolio & partnerships
We currently have a range of programs in our pipeline, the most advanced of which is JJP-1212, our potential first-in-class CD89 antagonist. We aim to progress our programs to clinical proof-of-concept. If you are interested in finding out more please contact us.
Developing personalized medicine where companion diagnostics are available
We develop innovative biologics for which companion diagnostics are available to enable a personalized medicine approach.
Companion diagnostics are diagnostic tests used to check whether a therapeutic drug will be applicable and effective in a specific patient. These diagnostics detect the presence of a biomarker, that is associated with disease severity and related to the disease pathology.
Companion diagnostics are attractive for patients and society
Avoidance of non-relevant treatments: Patients who do not have the relevant biomarker will not receive the improper drug and an alternative strategy will be selected. This prevents unnecessary health-care costs and improves patient outcomes.
Reduction in side effects: All drugs have unwanted side effects. By receiving only relevant treatments, patients do not suffer from side effects of ineffective medicine.
Smaller and more successful clinical trials:Â By companion diagnostic based selection of patients, a significant reduction in the number of patients can be accomplished during clinical trials to prove efficacy of a novel drug.
Reduced development costs: Due to the reduction of clinical trial size and thus increased chance of success the development costs are significantly reduced.
Pipeline
Our pipeline solely consists out of molecules with potential first-in-class mechanisms of action. Each program comes with a preselected biomarker that will enable companion diagnostic development for patient stratification.
Our leading programs
Autoantigen specific IgA antibodies are closely correlating with disease severity in over a dozen of different auto-immune indications and therefore these autoantigen-specific IgA antibodies were selected as companion diagnostic for the development of this innovative therapeutic.
A novel approach to pathogenic neutrophils
The JJP-1212 program focuses on antagonizing the IgA receptor CD89 (FcαRI) to treat IgA-mediated inflammatory diseases. Complexed IgA (auto)antibodies, upon binding to CD89, induce strong inflammatory responses on CD89+ immune cells like monocytes, macrophages, eosinophils and most notably neutrophils. Neutrophils are part of the innate immune system and are one of the most ignored immune cells in pharmaceutical development. Conversely, neutrophils have been identified as important drivers of disease pathology in various indications.
Upon binding to CD89, JJP-1212 inhibits binding of IgA and subsequent activation of the CD89+ immune cell. Thereby, inhibiting the release of chemoattractant molecules, epitope spreading and other activation functions that lead to severe inflammation and tissue damage.
JJP-1212 is intended to be used in indications with significant neutrophilic pathology, where using IgA-based companion diagnostics we intent to treat a stratified group of patients with an IgA-driven disease mechanism.
We are interested in various types of partnerships, for more information please contacts us.
The level of PD-L1 expression on tumors is in current clinical practice being used as companion diagnostic to select patients for the treatment with the highly successful anti-PD1 antibodies. In analogy with the PD-L1-PD1 axis, we have identified HVEM as tumor specific marker that correlates closely with poor prognosis and therefore the level of HVEM tumor expression is selected to serve as companion diagnostic for our treatment.
Swing around a disadvantage to an advantage
CD270 (HVEM) belongs to the TNF receptor superfamily and has three known ligands, where CD160 and BTLA provide co-inhibitory signals and LIGHT provides co-stimulating signals to T cells. Moreover, the HVEM-LIGHT action in the presence of CD160 or BTLA signals results in an immunosuppressive net-outcome. High expression of HVEM on tumours has been reported in literature to strongly correlate with poor survival and an immunosuppressive tumour micro-environment, which is consistent with the dominance of the CD160/BTLA co-inhibitory regulatory signals. Consequently, HVEM expression on tumours can be used as a companion biomarker to stratify patients for treatment with JJP-1008, our potential first-in-class HVEM-checkpoint inhibitor.
Our humanized anti-HVEM antibody JJP-1008 swings around the disadvantage of high HVEM expression of the tumour by selective inhibition of the immune suppressive ligands (CD160 & BTLA) whilst still allowing for activating signalling through LIGHT.
Partnering with us
The goal is to bring our innovative treatments to patients with unmet needs in a variety of indications. We are looking for partners with preferably global clinical and/or commercial capabilities in our disease areas of interest. Please contact us for more information.
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