Date: 2016-01-18
Type of information: Product acquisition
Compound: Alphamer technology
Company: Centauri Therapeutics (UK) Altermune Technologies (USA - CA)
Therapeutic area: Technology - Services - Infectious diseases
Type agreement: product acquisition
Action mechanism: aptamer/oligonucleotide/immunotherapy product. This approach is based on an active immunization. Alphamers are sugar-conjugated DNA aptamers containing α-Gal linked to an aptamer that targets a specific bacterial epitope and doesn’t bind host cells. Once these conjugates coat the pathogens, it can attract antibodies that can opsonize bacteria and then trigger their phagocytosis.
Disease: infectious diseases
Details: * On January 18, 2016, Centauri Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on the treatment of infectious diseases, announced that it has acquired the Alphamer technology for drug discovery and development from Altermune Technologies LLC. Centauri Therapeutics acquired full rights to patents, proprietary compounds, know-how and collaboration/licence agreements from Altermune in exchange for an undisclosed fee. The decision to acquire the Alphamer platform was made following the publication of a successful preclinical proof of principle study by Professor Victor Nizet, a professor at UCSD, California and a leading academic in the field of antimicrobial immunity. Mike Westby, CEO of Centauri Therapeutics, commented: “The emergence and rapid global spread of AMR pathogens means that there is a large potential market to treat life-threatening intractable diseases. Alphamers are chemically synthesised molecules designed to redirect the body’s own immune system to more effectively fight infection.”
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