Symphogen to collaborate on human antibody production in transgenic chickens

Collaboration

Symphogen A/S of Copenhagen is to collaborate with US biotech Origen Therapeutics to develop a transgenic chicken capable of producing human antibodies against a wide variety of disease targets.

Origen will use its avian transgenic technology to develop chickens that can be immunised with any disease target of interest, including cancer and autoimmune diseases. Symphogen will apply its antibody discovery and expression platforms to create novel recombinant fully human monoclonal and polyclonal antibody therapeutics against such targets. Both companies plan to employ the jointly developed transgenic technology to produce antibody-based drugs.

“Symphogen’s Symplex technology is an extremely powerful platform for direct isolation of potent, fully human antibody drug lead candidates against exogenous targets, such as those for infectious diseases,” said Kirsten Drejer, CEO of Symphogen. “The transgenic chicken to be developed by Origen will complement our existing discovery platform and provide us with the strategic freedom to develop recombinant fully human antibodies against any disease of interest, including cancer and autoimmune diseases.”

“We are very pleased to form this collaboration with Symphogen, a company with outstanding technical capabilities and a similar vision to our own about the direction of next generation of antibody therapeutics,” said Robert Kay, President and CEO of Origen Therapeutics.

“We both believe the future lies in the use of multiple antibodies against a disease target, rather than the single monoclonal antibody approach, to achieve a more potent therapeutic effect with fewer side effects. Together, we will develop transgenic chickens capable of producing a repertoire of human sequence antibodies in response to immunisation with specific disease antigens, and create complex antibody-based therapeutics against a wide range of diseases.”

Under the terms of the agreement, both companies will provide funding for the development of transgenic, human antibody-expressing chickens using Origen’s avian transgenic technology. Origen will receive upfront license payments and further payments upon reaching defined research and development goals.

In addition, Symphogen and Origen will pay each other royalties on products arising from the technology. Once human antibody-producing chickens are developed, both companies will hold rights to develop products from the birds. Symphogen will have the right to purchase exclusive access to the collaboration technology to generate human recombinant antibody products. The two companies plan to address targets in the areas of infectious disease, cancer and autoimmune diseases.

Origen Therapeutics, headquartered in Emeryville, California, aims to become a leading developer and producer of complex recombinant protein therapeutics, including next-generation human antibody therapeutics. Symphogen is developing recombinant polyclonal antibodies.