Anglo German biotech announced diabetes deal

Research collaboration

MediGene AG, through its wholly owned UK subsidiary in Oxford (formerly called Avidex), has announced a funded collaborative research programme with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF).

Through its Industry Discovery and Development Partnership Programme, the JDRF is providing financial support for the advancement of monoclonal T cell receptor (mTCR) therapeutics that aim to prevent the destruction of insulin producing beta cells that occurs with the onset of Type I diabetes. The JDRF will collaborate with MediGene over the next two years to accelerate ongoing proof-of-concept studies into the clinic.

“Preventing the autoimmune destruction of pancreatic beta cells is a major hurdle in treating type I diabetes,” said Ulrich Delvos, MediGene’s Chief Operating Officer. “Provided autoimmune destruction can be tamed, both the early diagnosis of pre-diabetic individuals and the recent advances in islet transplantation therapy offer the prospect of patients being able to maintain endogenous insulin production, with consequent improvements in quality of life. MediGene’s mTCR technology holds the promise of tackling the underlying cause of this autoimmune disease.”

MediGene’s mTCR therapeutics are based on engineering T-cell receptors into antibody-like proteins that can be used to actively target marketed drugs to target tissues. For its Type I diabetes programme, MediGene is developing specific mTCRs which will be used to both competitively block autoreactive T-cell engagement to beta cells and to selectively target known immunosuppressive agents to the beta cell's local environment.

“Targeted delivery of therapeutics is an attractive prospect,” said Dr Richard Insel, executive vice president of research at Jthe DRF. “This collaboration between MediGene and JDRF provides an exciting opportunity to validate the concept, and hopefully identify a lead compound for entry into the clinic.”