Scripps Research discovery leads to broad potential applications in CovX-Pfizer deal
December 19th, 2007 | by admin |LA JOLLA, CA, December 18, 2007 V For Immediate Release - A catalytic antibody discovery made at The Scripps Research Institute has formed the basis of the upcoming acquisition of biotechnology venture CovX by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, Inc.
“I am deeply gratified that our scientific findings have found such a broad potential application for drug discovery,” said Richard A. Lerner, M.D., president of Scripps Research. “This development underlines the importance of basic science for advancing human health. When the initial discoveries were made, no one envisaged their ultimate therapeutic potential.”
As licensor of the technology, Scripps Research will receive a percentage of the proceeds from the sale, as well royalties from any resulting therapies. The transaction between CovX and Pfizer was announced by the companies on December 18 and is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2008.
The Catalytic Antibody Advantage
Empowered by compelling results in his laboratory’s development of a new class of drugs, Professor Carlos F. Barbas, III, Ph.D., set out to found CovX in 2002. He teamed up with his colleague Richard Lerner, with whom he had developed a unique and powerful class of catalytic antibodies.
This work offers a groundbreaking way to physically combine catalytic antibodies, which are large, soluble molecules that remain in the body for long periods of time, with small molecule drugs and peptides, which can kill disease-causing cells but may be expelled from the body too quickly to be effective as a therapy. These hybrid molecules have the desirable properties of eachXkilling disease-causing cells and staying in circulation long enough to dramatically enhance the drug’s effectiveness.
The approach, which the scientists call “chemically programmed antibodies,” has led to a number of compounds against cancer and metabolic disease under development by CovX. Chemically programmed antiboContact: Keith McKeown
kmckeown@scripps.edu
858-784-8134
Scripps Research InstituteSource:Eurekalertdies, or “CovX-Bodies” as they were named by CovX, could also offer a general method for developing therapies against a range of diseases.
This technology represents the first time catalytic antibodies have been used in human therapy.
Building on Basic Science
Catalytic antibodiesXwhich Lerner pioneered simultaneously with Scripps Research Professor Peter Schultz, Ph.D., (then at the University of California, Berkeley) in the 1980sXare large proteins naturally produced by the immune system and found in the bloodstream.
Unlike ordinary antibodies, which recognize a wide range of foreign pathogens (such as bacteria and viruses) then alert the immune system to the presence of the invaders, catalytic antibodies recognize the transition state for chemical reactions. Catalytic antibodies can also catalyze chemical reactions, similar to enzymes.
These special properties of catalytic antibodies open the door to some interesting chemistry.
Take Barbas, Lerner, and then-postdoctoral fellow Jurgen Wagner’s paper published in the December 15, 1995 (Vol. 270) issue of the journal Science, which laid the foundation for the CovX technology years later.
In the study, the scientists used a technique called reactive immunization, which enabled antibodies to catalyze reactions previously thought impossible. Specifically, the technique allowed scientists to use antibodies to catalyze carbon-carbon bond formation and to bind catalytic antibodies to antigens covalently. (In general, antibodies bind non-covalently with their substrates.)
“The key feature of the reactive immunization approach is that it allowed us to define in rather precise chemical detail the amino acids within the active site of the antibody that would perform the chemical reaction,” said Barbas, adding that the antibodies the team developed with reactive immunization remain the most highly active catalysts ever made.
The paper Contact: Keith McKeown
kmckeown@scripps.edu
858-784-8134
Scripps Research InstituteSource:Eurekalert
Stumble it!
