AdAlta (ASX:1AD), a biotechnology company advancing its lead i-body candidate toward clinical development, has formed a collaborative partnership with UK-based research organisation Excellerate Bioscience.
The company said the collaboration has been established to advance the development of its i-body pipeline. It said the two companies will identify i-bodies with unique efficacy, safety and duration and determine which ones are best-in-class for binding to drug targets, specifically G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs).
GPCRs are involved in a wide array of diseases including diabetes and obesity but many remain difficult to target by small molecule and traditional antibody therapeutics.
AdAlta said it will screen its novel i-body library on a target of commercial interest. Excellerate Bioscience will evaluate the leads identified by AdAlta, profile the distinct pharmacology and enable the selection of superior drug candidates. AdAlta will then commercialise the outcomes of the project.
“It is now widely recognised that optimising the binding properties of new compounds that target GPCRs can result in drugs with significantly improved efficacy, safety and duration of action. With Excellerate’s expertise, we hope to identify novel i-bodies that are first in class and best-in-class for further development, and to showcase the i-body platform,” said AdAlta CEO Sam Cobb.
Excellerate Bioscience CSO, Professor Steven Charlton added, “We are very excited by the potential of i-body technology to provide much-needed novel mechanisms to modulate GPCR function and are delighted to be working with AdAlta on this exciting new therapeutic platform.”