Date: 2013-05-27
Type of information: Grant
Company: Merus (The Netherlands) and the SUPPRESSTEM consortium
Investors: European Commission’s Seventh Framework Program (FP7)
Amount: €6 Million
Funding type: grant
Planned used: The grant will be used to develop novel antibody-based therapeutics targeting cancer stem cells for the treatment of colorectal cancer as well as patient-derived organoid-based screening tools to aid drug discovery.
Others: * On May 27, 2013, Merus B.V., a biopharmaceutical company focusing on human antibody therapeutics, has announced that it has been granted funding from the European Union’s FP7 program. Merus is leading the SUPPRESSTEM consortium which was granted a total of about €6 million to develop novel antibody-based therapeutics targeting cancer stem cells for the treatment of colorectal cancer as well as patient-derived organoid-based screening tools to aid drug discovery. The consortium includes The Hubrecht Institute (The Netherlands), OcellO B.V. (The Netherlands), Fundacio Privada Institut de Recerca Biomedica (Spain), and The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute (UK).
Specifically, the consortium is addressing mechanisms that lead to the development of treatment resistance and tumor escape in colon cancer. Furthermore, it is pioneering the application of patient-derived tissue in drug discovery to address the high clinical failure rate in cancer drug research. In the SUPPRESSTEM consortium, Merus will develop Biclonics™ antibodies which will both modulate the Wnt pathway and address growth factor receptors to specifically inhibit cancer stem cells with minimal toxicity on healthy tissue. Functional screening of these stem cell-targeting bispecific antibodies for specific inhibitory activity and for selecting lead candidates will be done using organoids.
Biclonics™ are full-length bispecific IgG antibodies encoded by a common light chain (cLC) and two different heavy chains. Using a proprietary CH3 dimerization technology, the two different heavy chains and the cLC are expressed in a single cell to efficiently assemble into Biclonics™. Biclonics™ have excellent stability and pharmacokinetics and are produced at >99% purity in manufacturing cell lines such as CHO cells, providing yields of >2.5 grams/liter. Due to their ability to bind to two different epitopes on a single or on multiple target antigens, bispecific antibodies can exert more potent biological activities than conventional therapeutic antibodies. They bind to target cells more specifically and can be applied to redirect immune effector cells such as T cells or NK cells for potent target cell killing.
Therapeutic area: Cancer - Oncology
