Amorfix and QED Bioscience to develop novel monoclonal antibodies for cancer

Toronto, ON – Amorfix Life Sciences and QED Bioscience have announced they are working together to develop high-affinity monoclonal antibodies against a number of targets for cancer. Under the agreement, QED will generate monoclonal antibodies against several disease specific epitopes (DSEs) on misfolded CD38 protein. The DSEs were identified by Amorfix using their proprietary ProMIS(TM) computational platform discovery technology.

“CD38 is a well-characterized target on the surface of a variety of lymphoid tumours including multiple myeloma, AIDS-related lymphomas and post-transplant lymphoproliferations and is part of a complex network producing growth and survival signals to tumour cells,” said Dr Robert Gundel, Amorfix’s CEO. “As such, CD38 represents an attractive target for therapeutic intervention with a specific antibody.

He adds that his company has “identified DSEs on misfolded CD38 that may provide the required specificity for our antibody to target and kill tumour cells expressing this protein while leaving normal cells intact. In addition, CD38 can be used as a prognostic marker which fits well into our strategy of developing companion diagnostics along with novel therapeutic antibodies.”