Velabs Therapeutics

Jun 15, 2021

VERAXA Biotech and Quadira Biosciences Enter Partnership on ADC Development VERAXA Biotech and Quadira Biosciences Enter Partnership on ADC Development HEIDELBERG, Germany and ZUG, Switzerland, June 14, 2021 / B3C newswire / -- VERAXA Biotech GmbH (former Velabs Therapeutics GmbH), a leading company in innovative ADC engineering and functional antibody screening, announced today that it has entered into a partnership agreement with Quadira Biosciences AG, Zug, Switzerland, to jointly develop a suite of novel ADCs for the treatment of oncological conditions. The collaboration will leverage both the advantages of VERAXA's advanced and proprietary position-true click-chemistry-based drug conjugation technology in combination with Quadira’s superior 3D cellular assay and assessment systems. The agreement provides that VERAXA will be entitled to upfront payments and royalties from the worldwide sale of products resulting from the collaboration. Further details of the agreement were not disclosed. Quadira Biosciences AG is a Joint Venture between abc biopply AG, a Swiss biotech company specializing in the standardization of biological components and complex 3D cell culture systems and Xlife Sciences AG, a Swiss based biotech company. Quadira will, under the partnership, have exclusive access to abc biopply’s proprietary 3D CoSeedis™ technology platform, a new standard in the industrial application of 3D cell culture systems for preclinical drug validation. VERAXA Biotech is a leading pioneer of microfluidic technology for the ultra-fast screening of functional antibodies. The company has developed superior microfluidic hardware and processes to screen for modulatory mAbs on complex target proteins such as GPCRs. In contrast to all other technologies available, VERAXA combines binding and functional assessment in 1 single step and unravels precious therapeutic hits out of entire immune repertoires that consists of millions of B cells in less than 48 hours. Just recently, VERAXA acquired Araxa Biosciences GmbH, a biotech company with innovative and proprietary protein engineering and click-chemistry based drug coupling technologies to expand its preclinical antibody capacities from early screening to later stage antibody engineering and to sharpen its profile in personalized medicine and precision oncology. With the novel ADC technology, VERAXA can perform precise site-specific antibody labeling with almost any drug at any position and highest reproducibility. The company has several ADC in production and testing with superior cytotox profiles as compared to benchmark molecules. "This partnership with Quadira is an ideal and fully complementary constellation adding significant value to our top ADC candidate suite by in depths assessment through Quadira’s unmet gold standard 3D assay platform," said Christoph Antz, CEO of VERAXA. "The combination of VERAXA’s first class novel ADC candidates with POC assessment data from our 3D cell culture systems will strongly speed up the whole ADC drug development process. We will generate a suite of best-in-class ADC drug candidates with a significantly de-risked development trajectory and high preclinical maturity," adds Arne Faiss, CEO of both abc biopply and Quadira. VERAXA Biotech is a fusion of Velabs Therapeutics GmbH and Araxa Biosciences GmbH, both spin-off companies of Europe's most renowned institute for life science research and instrument development, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), which is at the forefront of microfluidics-based screening technology and applications worldwide. The Company's droplet-based microfluidic screening technology and its innovative antibody and protein conjugation technology allows for a  rapid generation of antibodies against most complex target molecules and for a target product profile sharpening of existing mAb candidates in oncology or precision medicine. VERAXA is a preferred license & cooperation partner of global biotech and pharma industries. Quadira  Biosciences AG is a joint venture between abc biopply and Xlife Sciences AG. Quadira Biosciences has access to the proprietary 3D CoSeedis™ technology platform of abc biopply. This unique 3D cell technology enables the replication and modelling of human tissue for reliable testing and characterization of antibodies without animal testing. Preclinical development candidates for antibody or ADC development can thus be used even more efficiently. Xlife Sciences AG is a Swiss company focused on the value development of promising technologies in the life science sector. The company bridges the gap between research and development and the healthcare markets. Together with industrial partners or university institutions, the company leads projects through the proof of concept phase after an invention disclosure or spin-off. Xlife Sciences AG thus provides its investors with a very early and direct entry into the further development of innovative and future-oriented technologies.