Absolute Antibody Ltd., an industry-leading provider of recombinant antibody products and services, and mAbsolve, developers of a novel Fc silencing variant, today announced a licensing deal for mAbsolve’s Fc silencing technology. The agreement provides Absolute Antibody clients with easy license-free access to the new STR Fc silencing platform for antibody research and development, while ensuring favorable business terms for subsequent clinical development.
Fc-mediated immune effector functions are an important part of an antibody’s natural function, but in many therapeutic antibodies, these interactions are not desirable and can lead to catastrophic side effects. Many approaches to eliminate effector function have been developed, but none completely silence the unwanted binding to Fc gamma receptors. The new STR Fc silencing platform, developed by mAbsolve and described in a recent PLOS One article, delivers the only truly silent Fc mutations described to date. The technology therefore has the potential to improve the safety and efficacy of therapeutic antibodies and Fc fusion proteins.
The license agreement allows Absolute Antibody to make this best-in-class Fc silencing technology available for early-stage therapeutic development and ensures its clients have the best possible starting position for further development of their lead antibody candidates. In addition, Absolute Antibody will be making control and reference antibodies featuring the STR mutations available as off-the-shelf reagents to facilitate and streamline early-stage assessments and developments.
“Absolute Antibody specializes in antibody engineering, and we are committed to offering our customers the latest and most innovative engineering technologies to facilitate their antibody research and development,” said Dr. Michael Fiebig, Chief Scientific Officer at Absolute Antibody. “We are excited to partner with the mAbsolve team, who have a wealth of knowledge and experience in developing therapeutic antibodies, to offer their novel Fc silencing technology to our client base.”
“mAbsolve is committed to improving the safety and effectiveness of therapeutic antibodies, and we strongly believe that STR technology can be of real benefit to the majority of antibody and Fc fusion proteins in development,” said Dr. Geoff Hale, Chief Executive Officer at mAbsolve. “Our STR mutations provide a truly silent and highly developable antibody Fc region, and we are eager to widely license it to partners such as Absolute Antibody, to make the technology easily accessible for therapeutic developers around the world.”
The new Fc silencing technology joins Absolute Antibody’s full portfolio of antibody engineering capabilities, which also includes species, isotype and subtype switching; chimerization and humanization; and the custom manufacture of bispecific or trispecific antibodies, antibody fragments and Fc fusion proteins. Absolute Antibody also offers antibody sequencing and expression services, as well as a unique catalog of engineered recombinant antibodies. mAbsolve launched STR Fc silencing in 2020 and has since had a patent application and peer-reviewed journal article published on the technology.