COPENHAGEN, Denmark and PRINCETON, New Jersey – Symphogen A/S announced today that the United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued U.S. Patent No. 7,749,697, titled “Method for linking sequences of interest.” The patent broadly covers Symphogen’s Symplex™ technology, a novel PCR-based process for identifying and isolating target-specific high affinity antibodies, the starting point for discovery and development of antibody drugs customized to a particular therapeutic application. The technology allows efficient high-throughput isolation of antibodies maintaining the natural high binding affinity and specificity of the original donor antibodies. In addition to the United States patent, patents on the Symplex™ technology have been granted in numerous territories worldwide, including a European patent covering 27 countries.
” This patent marks an important milestone in the expansion of our global intellectual property estate, which includes worldwide patents or patent applications for our therapeutic product candidates as well as our proprietary antibody discovery lead optimization and manufacturing technologies,”
stated Kirsten Drejer, M.Sc. and Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Symphogen.
” Symplex™ is a pioneering technology for identifying and isolating therapeutic monoclonal antibodies and mixtures of antibodies. This discovery engine allows us to understand and reproduce the often complex, natural antibody responses of the human body.”
Dr. Drejer concluded: ” Symplex™ is an increasingly validated technology, with a number of clinical and preclinical antibodies in development both as part of our internal pipeline as well as through our expanding stable of strategic collaborations.”
About Symplex
Symplex™ is Symphogen’s proprietary process for discovering target specific high affinity antibodies as the basis for monoclonal drugs and rationally designed antibody mixtures and polyclonal antibody leads. The Symplex™ discovery process begins by isolating plasma cells or memory B lymphocytes, which are responsible for making antibodies, from human donors displaying immunity against a particular target antigen, or from animals that have been immunized with a target antigen. Antibodies are then obtained from these cells using single cell Symplex™ PCR cloning and subsequent functional screening.
A critical problem solved by the Symplex™ technology is the direct isolation of antibody encoding genes from human or animal immune starting material, such that the original pairing of the antibody building blocks, the heavy chains and the light chains, is maintained. In the case of human donors, the high antibody affinities generated in the natural human immune response translate directly and unaltered into lead antibody compositions comprising fully human antibodies. The Symplex™ technology can also be used to obtain antibodies from mice or other animal sources as basis for development of humanized antibodies.
About Symphogen
Symphogen is developing superior antibody therapeutics (monoclonal, monoclonal mixtures and polyclonal) to help people with serious diseases and significant unmet medical needs. With its proprietary, unique Symplex™ discovery and Sympress™ manufacturing platforms, the company captures the diversity and specificity of the natural immune response in rationally designed recombinant antibody compositions. Symphogen is maturing a diversified pipeline of internal and partnered products across multiple indications including cancer, autoimmune and infectious disease. Symphogen is a private biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, with a US subsidiary in Princeton, New Jersey.