Therapies Help to Repair and Prevent Disease Progression

An expansion to its original agreement with Daewoong Pharmaceutical Co and AffyXell Therapeutics  has enabed Avacta to include Affimer molecules that target viruses, such as coronaviruses, in order to develop therapies that repair the lung damage caused by COVID-19 whilst also producing neutralising Affimer molecules to prevent the progression of the disease.

AffyXcell Therapeutics, a joint venture established in South Korea by the two companies, will engineer mesenchymal stem cells to express SARS-COV-2 neutralising Affimer molecules in order to develop treatments for seriously ill COVID-19 patients, and will also prepare for rapid development of next-generation stem cell therapies for future infectious respiratory disease outbreaks.

Dr. Alastair Smith, Chief Executive of Avacta Group said: “I am very pleased to have extended our collaboration and license agreement with Daewoong Pharmaceutical to include the SARS-COV-2 neutralising Affimer molecules for the treatment of COVID-19 and to create the potential to respond very rapidly in future to global virus threats.

“More broadly, one of the key areas of unmet clinical need that AffyXell can address with its next-generation mesenchymal stem cell therapies is acute pulmonary diseases such as COPD and acute respiratory distress syndrome. We, and our partners in South Korea, are very excited by the potential to develop life improving treatments for patients with these serious respiratory diseases as well as COVID-19.

Seng-ho Jeon, CEO of Daewoong Pharmaceutical and AffyXell Therapeutics, added: “It is very encouraging that AffyXell now has the opportunity to expand the application of its next-generation stem cell platform technology to target viruses. The SARS-COV-2 neutralising Affimer to be developed in combination with AffyXell’s cell and gene technology is expected to be an innovative solution for COVID-19 patients suffering cytokine release syndrome.”