Development of New Generation Biomolecule and modality

We have been developing the new generation biomolecules and modality with cutting-edge drug discovery ideas for approaching Unmet medical needs. We have also been improving our research of cell therapy and gene therapy.

Development of drug seeds ~VHH antibody and cyclic peptide~

• Multivalent VHHs （multi-specific VHHs, multi-paratopic VHHs, and etc）
• Allosteric function
• Agonist function

Application for Drug delivery system (DDS)

• ADC
• Photoimmunotherapy

Application for regenerative medicine and gene therapy

Application for ultra-sensitive detection system and diagnostic system

• Imaging Diagnostics

Molecular engineering

VHH is able to be dosed as a monomer antibody, however, it has ability to be engineered as multivalent antibody and Fc-fusion. This molecular engineering improves half-life in blood stream and their drug activity.

Multivalent VHH

The domain structure of VHH is easy to be engineered. Normally, multiple VHHs are tandemly linked by peptide linkers such as homodimer, heterodimer, multimer (more than a trimer). The combination of linking VHHs should be determined for their drug targets and functions.

Fc-fusion

VHH is easy to be engineered because of their small molecular weight, however, the half-life in the blood stream is short. For improvement of half-life, Fc-fusion is one of the solutions for VHH drug discovery.

Bi-specific antibody

Bi-specific antibody is VHH multimer which recognize epitopes of different antigens. Multimer such as VHH hetero dimer can synergistically improve their drug activity, and it brings close intermolecular distance.

Drug discovery of epitope

Identification and selection of epitopes for expression of drug efficacy (such as agonist, antagonist, allosteric, intracellular, and etc.) are one of the most important processes. For the new generation of researching antibody medications, 1) obtaining the antibodies which bind to difference epitopes and 2) select the antibodies bind to best epitope for drug discovery of epitope are very important.

Drug discovery of paratope

Drug discovery of paratope means that drug discovery with antibodies which bind different epitopes in the same target molecules. VHH has very small molecular weight, so it is able to be engineered as a multimer antibody. For instance, two different VHHs which recognize different epitopes on antigen can be linked together and form hetero dimer. Drug discovery of paratope can improve affinity and specificity for target molecules, and their drug activity can be synergistically improved.