UCB announces collaboration with UK company

UCB is to collaborate with Avacta, a biophysics company “spun-off” from the University of Leeds, to develop new technologies analysing the properties of therapeutic antibodies.

Avacta will work with UCB’s Celltech Antibody Centre of Excellence in a Department of Trade and Industry-sponsored collaboration aimed at analysing the key properties of experimental compounds at an early stage.

Factors like compound aggregation, stability and viscosity will be studied to look for signs of problems that could occur at a later stage of development. Avacta claims this approach could save companies from investing in further compound research, only to find that there are problems with the drug’s biophysical properties.

Under the agreement, the rights to therapeutic molecules developed during the collaboration will belong to UCB, while Avacta will retain the rights for new analytical technologies.

Avacta’s chief executive, Professor Alistair Smith, stated: “There are difficulties faced by biopharmaceutical companies in predicting therapeutic protein performance at an early stage, thereby leading to increased risk of eventual product failure.”

“This project addresses these issues by developing innovative biophysical tools for the rapid analysis of small volumes of compounds and predictive tools which may reduce the attrition rate of candidates in the development pipeline, thereby saving these companies many millions,” he concluded.

UCB has said that Avacta represents the “cutting edge” of research.

Avacta was formed in 2004 and is located at York Biocentre in Yorkshire.

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