Boston BioCom LLC announced the successful completion of a collaborative research agreement between its Jantibody Therapeutics LLC subsidiary and Pfenex Inc., resulting in the rapid production of a HSP-avidin fusion protein for the Jantibodies self-assembling vaccines platform. Jantibody Therapeutics was created by Boston BioCom to commercialize a novel class of immunologically-enhanced monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that utilize heat shock protein 70 (HSP 70) for initial applications in oncology and infectious diseases, as well as a self-assembling HSP vaccine platform that can be used to enhance the effectiveness of existing mAbs and to readily generate cancer vaccines as well as vaccines for emerging infectious diseases.
Under the terms of the agreement, Pfenex applied its Pfēnex Expression Technology™ platform to produce initial amounts of HSP-avidin fusion protein for the Jantibodies platform. The Pfenex technology utilizes an extensive toolbox of engineered host strains and expression elements derived from Pseudomonas fluorescens bacteria to rapidly screen and identify a production strain producing soluble, active protein. This collaboration was funded through a Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) contract award.
"Through this constructive collaboration with Pfenex, Jantibody Therapeutics has made another important step in advancing its technology platform into products that could potentially treat infections or cancers," said Jeffrey Gelfand, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of Boston BioCom. "Targeted monoclonal antibodies and therapeutic vaccines for oncology both represent large and rapidly growing market segments, and we are taking advantage of this opportunity with an innovative approach that may significantly improve upon existing mAbs and cancer vaccines, particularly related to the scale and range of immune response that they can achieve."
"This project with Jantibody Therapeutics demonstrates that the Pfēnex Expression Technology platform supports the rapid advancement of high-quality proteins for our partners to use in applications such as vaccines," said Charles H. Squires, Ph.D., Vice President of Discovery and Partnerships of Pfenex Inc. "Our success with the Jantibodies platform, in addition to the validation provided by our DTRA funding, establishes Pfenex as a preferred provider of rapid protein production to drug discovery and development companies."