DOMANTIS GRANTED BROAD EUROPEAN PATENT RIGHTS TO PIONEERING HALF-LIFE EXTENSION TECHNOLOGY

Domantis, the human Domain Antibody (dAb) therapeutics company, today announced the grant of EP1517921B with broad composition of matter claims protecting its “AlbudAb” technology.

AlbudAbs are dAbs that specifically bind to serum albumin and can dramatically enhance the half-life and efficacy of any molecule attached to them. The granted patent covers two or more dAbs linked to one another, where at least one dAb binds to serum albumin. The patent is the first to grant of a series of filings based on Domantis’ pioneering AlbudAb approach. Domantis’ lead AlbudAb program will enter late stage pre-clinical testing this year.

Domantis’ Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer Dr Ian Tomlinson said, “We are delighted that such a broadly applicable technology has now been granted such extensive patent coverage. As part of Domantis’ Albutherapeutics franchise, we are using the AlbudAb approach to further expand our extensive pipeline of proprietary products, both by improving existing drugs and by creating a range of entirely new drugs with exceptional half-lives. We expect our lead AlbudAb to enter late stage pre-clinical testing this year.”

Human serum albumin has a very long half-life of about three weeks. Domantis has developed a range of albumin binding dAbs, or “AlbudAbs” that can be attached to a therapeutic compound (such as a peptide or another dAb) and then administered to the patient. By binding to the patient’s serum albumin the half-life of the therapeutic compound is dramatically enhanced, meaning that drugs with natural half-lives of minutes can be converted into AlbudAb-drug conjugates with half-lives well over a week. Domantis has shown in over ten different pre-clinical proof of concept models that this increase in half-life can lead to dramatic improvements in efficacy.

In contrast to existing approaches for extending the serum half-life of drugs, AlbudAbs are smaller and much easier to manufacture in microbial expression systems, such as bacteria or yeast. They represent a powerful and broadly applicable approach to improving the efficacy of short-lived therapeutic drugs and are expected to rival the current industry gold standards, such as PEGylation, Fc fusion and albumin fusion technologies, and provide significant cost of goods and dosing advantages.

The EP1517921B patent provides Domantis with dominant composition of matter protection until 2023 and covers all major European markets. The patent covers two or more dAbs, derived from any species, that are linked to one another, where at least one of the dAbs binds a target that increases the in vivo half-life. Coverage is provided for various formats, directed against any therapeutic target, and for numerous specific therapeutic targets. Methods of producing AlbudAb products, pharmaceutical compositions of AlbudAb products, nucleic acids encoding them, vectors and host cells are also protected. The patent complements other worldwide IP in the Domantis’ AlbudAb portfolio, such as WO2005118642 and WO2006051288, which cover AlbudAbs conjugated to non-antibody drugs.