Pepscan and Tibotec sign peptides deal

pharmafile | September 15, 2010 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing CLIPS, HIV, J&J, JJ, Pepscan, Tibotec 

Pepscan Therapeutics, the biotech firm focusing on protein mimicry technology has signed a deal with Tibotec.

Netherlands-based Pepscan will use its CLIPS technology in its work with Tibotec to develop novel therapeutic peptides against an undisclosed target.

Tibotec, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, focuses on developing new treatments for HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis.

The deal will see Pepscan receive R&D funding and payments if and when research and clinical milestones are reached, as well as royalties on sales of products resulting from the collaboration. Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

“Pepscan has recently realigned its R&D programme to focus on the application of its proprietary CLIPS protein mimicry technology for the generation of novel therapeutic peptides and immunogens,” said Wim Mol, chief executive of Pepscan.

“We are very pleased that Tibotec has decided to enter into a collaboration agreement with Pepscan that will utilise the CLIPS technology. We are convinced that our strong technology and expertise can yield improved peptides with superior activity and proteolytic stability, all this with a significantly shorter peptide. We consider this agreement a further expression of our leadership position in the field of protein mimicry,” he added.

Pepscan Therapeutics’ proprietary high throughput CLIPS protein mimicking technology is used to develop novel constrained therapeutic peptides and immunogens. Besides its pipeline of proprietary anti-GPCR monoclonal antibody products, Pepscan is working with numerous pharma and biotech companies to develop novel therapeutics based on it CLIPS technology.

CLIPS (Chemical LInkage of Peptides onto Scaffolds) is a technology to present one or more peptides in a structurally constrained configuration. These molecules behave as functional mimics of complex protein domains. CLIPS peptides have been used in antibody and vaccine programmes to create superior immunogens in the generation of antibodies against disease relevant protein targets. This is especially valuable in the case of proteins that are inaccessible as recombinant proteins, such as G-protein couple receptors (GPCRs).

Andrew McConaghie

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