TNF-alpha inhibitors are front line treatments for autoimmune diseases, comprising a €45B annual market. To date, approximately 50% of patients develop resistance to the treatment. The company has developed proprietary tools for engineering of the glycans, sugar molecules, that are naturally found on the surface of a therapeutic drug. Sugar molecules are used to re-design TNF-alpha inhibitors creating a variant of the therapy that patients do not develop resistance to.

In a second work stream, the control of glycans is also being used for the development of antibody- drug conjugates (ADCs), with novel glycan sites enabling close control of the drug to antibody ratio, and a safer treatment for patients.

This proprietary glycan engineering strategy can be used to solve major challenges in antibody therapies, making them safer and more accessible to patients.
French start-up working in this field, who won several Innovation prizes, would like to find a partner eligible for EIC Transition, who can be a Coordinator.
Advantages and innovation
Glycan engineeirng of recombinant antibodies to enhance safety and efficacy of immunotherpaies. The company has developed proprietary bioproduction cell lines that precision control glycosylation, which is used to design antibody therapeutics with superior function. The first target is preventing patient resistance to treatments for autoimmune diseases.
Technical Specification or Expertise Sought
Multiple types of partners envisaged, partner must have eligibility for the EIC Transition as of September 2024
- Partner with access to patient samples from autoimmune patients, enabling testing of therapeutics patient serum
- Partner who has developed proprietary technology in protein structural modelling, in order to model the behaviour of glycan engineered therapeutics with their target.
- Partner developing an antibody therapeutic that suffers from poor efficacy or high levels of toxicity in vivo.
- Partner developing a bi specific antibody.
- Partner with a linker technology for antibody drug conjugates.
- Partner with analytical techniques to examine glycosylated proteins (Mass spectrometery, DLS, other).

Framework program
Horizon Europe
Call title and identifier
EIC Transition
Submission and evaluation scheme
September 2024
Anticipated project budget
2-3 mln Euros
Coordinator required
Yes
Deadline for EoI
31/07/2024
Deadline of the call
24/09/2024
Project duration in weeks
Web link to the call
https://eic.ec.europa.eu/eic-funding-opportunities/eic-transition_en