Skin-health focused drug developer, Almirall, looks to utilize WuXiBody, a platform designed by WuXi Biologics, in order to identify bispecific antibodies as ‘effective next-generation therapies’ with dermatological indications, Bhushan Hardas, Almirall’s CSO, stated.
Under the agreement, which, according to Hardas, forms ‘a big step forward’ in developing such treatments, WuXi Biologics will receive an upfront payment as well as development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments for each bispecific antibody generated.
Additionally, WuXi Biologics will be entitled to royalties based on global sales achieved by these projects.
Chris Chen, the CEO of WuXi Biologics told us that the collaboration will focus on atopic dermatitis, however researchers 'cannot discard other dermatological diseases' as well.
Antibody-based treatments are 'excellent' for dermatological indications, since they allow targeting of "specifically the right mediator of the disease," the company's CEO explained to us.
According to Chen, the collaborative work will begin in 2020 and will take place at the company's facilities in Shanghai, China.
The WuXiBody platform is designed for the identification of multiple bispecific antibodies, and, according to WuXi Biologics, it enables almost any monoclonal antibody sequence pair to be assembled into the bispecific construct.
Moreover, WuXi Biologics stated that the platform’s structural flexibility makes it convenient to build various formats with different valency, while it has the potential to expedite the drug development process by six to 18 months, as well as to significantly reduce cost-of-goods.
WuXiBody was launched in August 2018, from this time the company has established 12 global drug development partnerships.
The Chinese contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) has experienced significant growth during the recent years, with its CEO, previously announcing the company’s plans to “gain more market share from the booming biologics outsourcing market.”