BAC Completes Feasibility Study in Providing Unique Selective Ligands For Genmab’s UniBody® Platform

NAARDEN, The Netherlands--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- BAC BV, the leading provider of antibody-based affinity purification technology, today announced that it successfully completed a feasibility study in its collaboration with Genmab A/S (Copenhagen, Denmark), an international biotechnology company developing human antibody therapeutics for the potential treatment of cancer. Under this collaboration, BAC developed CaptureSelect® custom affinity ligands for use in monitoring Genmab UniBody® drug candidates in preclinical studies and clinical trials and delivered positive results from the initial feasibility study.

UniBody® is Genmab’s proprietary antibody technology for creating a monovalent non-activating and stable antibody format with an anticipated longer therapeutic window than current small antibody formats. UniBody® molecules are based on human IgG4 antibodies, and consist of only one heavy and one light chain. UniBody® molecules are suitable as therapeutics when monovalent binding to the target is required and no immune effector functions are desired, for instance for the treatment of asthma, inflammation, and cardiovascular and infectious diseases.

BAC’s affinity ligands for UniBody® molecules were designed to distinguish between monovalent UniBody® molecules and native IgG4 antibodies, thereby avoiding binding to the Fab-domain of the UniBody®. Despite the high similarity between the related proteins, BAC’s UniBody®-specific affinity ligands did not show any cross-binding to other mammalian IgG4 molecules.

“We are delighted to have completed the feasibility study on the custom-made CaptureSelect® affinity ligands for Genmab,” said Dr. Laurens Sierkstra, CEO of BAC. “Besides the lack of the hinge region, some of Genmab’s monovalent UniBody® molecules differ only in a few amino acids compared to the native homodimer IgG4 molecules, and the challenge was to create affinity ligands targeting those regions. This success further confirms that our CaptureSelect platform can consistently produce highly specific affinity ligands and can discriminate between proteins differing in only a few amino acids.”

Notes to editors:

About BAC
BAC BV offers a wide range of products and services for affinity purification of biological materials from complex media. The Company’s proprietary CaptureSelect® affinity ligands, based on Camelid single chain antibody fragments, have been proven to be suitable in a wide range of biological applications including Life Science Research and Biomanufacturing. BAC’s CaptureSelect ligands are available through the Company’s custom design service, or as off-the-shelf bioprocess products through commercial partners. CaptureSelect ligands for research applications are available direct from BAC through the Company’s web shop.

CaptureSelect® ligand technology is based on selection of single chain antibody fragments with desirable chromatographic characteristics including robustness, high specificity and flexibility. Suitable ligands are cloned and expressed in high-titres through an animal-free Saccharomyces cerevisiae-based process.

BAC BV was established in 1995 as a Unilever subsidiary. Currently the Company employs 37 people with an R&D laboratory facility in Leiden and a state-of-the-art ISO 9001 certified manufacturing plant in Naarden, the Netherlands. For more information about BAC, visit our website at www.bac.nl. For more information about CaptureSelect® products, visit our website at www.captureselect.com



CONTACT:

College Hill Life Sciences
Adam Michael
or
Anastasios Koutsos,
[email protected]
Tel: +44-(0)20-7457-2020

KEYWORDS:   Europe  Netherlands

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS:   Health  Biotechnology  Clinical Trials  Oncology  Pharmaceutical

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