Novozymes Biopharma has teamed up with US-based biotech company EpiVax to further develop a new treatment to fight autoimmune diseases.
The research will involve linking EpiVax’s immune-modulating therapy Tregitope for the treatment of diabetes 1 with Novozymes’ Albufuse, an albumin fusion technology developed to control the pharmacokinetics of target proteins and peptides for optimal use.
The technology will help the team extend the half-life of the therapy to enhance the efficacy of the treatment.
Biological drugs often have short plasma half-lives, which can result in patients requiring more frequent dosages of medication.
This can lead to greater incidence of side-effects, reduced patient compliance and increased healthcare costs.
At the same time, pharmaceutical companies are increasingly finding it a challenge to take drugs through clinical trials.
Novozymes business development director Dave Mead said; "By taking EpiVax’s pioneering therapy and combining it with Novozymes’ versatile and clinically demonstrated Albufuse technology, along with the unparalleled expertise of our R&D scientists, we will work together to move the treatment to the next stage in its development."
Novozymes’ albumin-based technology has the potential to tailor half-life according to specific medical requirements and enable products to reach the market more efficiently and cost effectively.
Preliminary studies in the area of Type 1 diabetes have indicated that Tregitopes specifically induce natural regulatory T cells and, when co-administered with an antigen, lead to the expansion of antigen-specific regulatory T cells.
