The Simple Antibody platform will be utilized, and Lilly will supply targets.
arGEN-X and Eli Lilly have agreed to discover and develop therapeutic antibody products against targets submitted by Lilly. arGEN-X will receive license fees and research funding as well as potential milestone payments.
arGEN-X will generate novel human mAb candidates that act on diverse functional sites on Lilly targets using using its Simple Antibody platform. Lilly will have the option to select the most promising mAb candidates to take forward into preclinical and clinical development and potential commercialization.
The Simple Antibody technology generates antibodies that do not need in vitro affinity maturation. It is based on the discovery that the binding sites of conventional four-chain antibodies in immunized Camelids have phenomenal functional attributes and comprise sequences and structures that are effectively human. Candidates generated on the platform have the closest possible homology to human germline sequence and the ideal human constant region isotype for functional performance, according to the company.
