Developing personalized medicine where companion diagnostics are available
We develop innovative biologics for which companion diagnostics are available in order 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 also 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 the novel drug.
Reduced development costs: Due to the reduction in clinical trial size and increased chance of success the developmental costs are significantly reduced.
Pipeline
We are currently developing multiple candidates selected on the above principal, the most advanced being our humanized antagonist anti-CD89 for the treatment of IgA-mediated inflammatory diseases.
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 anti-CD89 (FcαRI) program focuses on antagonizing the IgA receptor CD89 for the treatment of IgA-mediated diseases and the prevention of IgA-mediated pathogenic neutrophilic tissue damage. Neutrophils are part of the innate immune system and are the most ignored cell type of the immune system, but play a devastating role in many auto-immune diseases. Our novel approach is unique in both its target and in its therapeutic potential for neutrophilic-driven diseases, in which treatment options are severely lacking. A significant proportion of auto-immune patients who are not responding to TNF inhibitors have high neutrophil involvement in the disease accompanied by high auto-antigen specific IgA responses. Beyond neutrophil CD89 is also expressed on monocytes, macrophages and eosinophils which upon IgA binding contribute to the inflammatory response that can also be inhibited by the antagonist anti-CD89 antibody.
The candidate antibodies being developed by JJP Biologics can prevent the IgA-mediated activation of the immune system and inhibit the release of chemo-attractive signals and pathogenic molecules, making them unique in their class. Furthermore, as companion diagnostic for patient stratification and personalized medicine, autoantigen IgA antibodies which in most auto-immune disease are already embedded in daily clinical diagnosis of patients.
If you are interested in licensing our anti-CD89 therapeutic please contact 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
HVEM (CD270) belongs to the TNF receptor superfamily and has three known ligands, of which CD160 and BTLA both deliver co-inhibitory signals, whereas LIGHT provides co-stimulatory 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 the HVEM on tumors strongly correlates with poor survival and an immunosuppressive tumor micro-environment, which is consistent with the dominance of CD160/BTLA co-inhibitory regulatory signals. Consequently, HVEM expression in tumors can be employed as companion diagnostic to stratify patients for treatment with anti-HVEM antibodies.
Our novel anti-HVEM antibodies swing around the disadvantage of high HVEM expression of the tumor cell into an advantage by selective inhibition of the immune suppressive ligands CD160 and BTLA allowing for the exclusive immune activating interaction of HVEM with LIGHT.
If you are interested in licensing our anti-HVEM therapeutic antibody please contact us.
Partnering with us
The ultimate goal of our development is to partner with companies who have the reach to maximize the access to patients who need such high-quality medicines. Please contact us for more information.
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