Intract Pharma and Elasmogen Ltd announce collaboration to discover and develop novel, orally-delivered protein therapeutics

Intract Pharma Limited London, UK (“Intract”), and Elasmogen Limited, Aberdeen, Scotland (“Elasmogen”) have announced an agreement to collaborate and develop novel orally-delivered protein therapeutics (biologics), incorporating proprietary technologies developed by each of the partners. 

The collaboration combines Elasmogen’s soloMER™ technology, small (11 kDa) single-chain  binding domains that can be rapidly re-formatted to generate super-neutralizers (bivalent, biparatropic) with Intract’s Soteria® and Phloral® technologies, a unique platform for oral delivery of biologics targeted to the lower GI tract. Combining the advantages of these platforms will allow the oral delivery of therapeutically active, highly potent and gut targeted proteins, initially focused on local GI indications such as inflammatory bowel disease.

Bill Lindsay, CEO of Intract, said “Collaboration with Elasmogen represents an exciting synergy of Intract’s expertise in the formulation of biologic drugs with Elasmogen’s unique multi-valent formats to allow the development of novel and potent oral therapeutics”.

Caroline Barelle, CEO of Elasmogen said “Achieving oral delivery of our soloMER products is a key differentiator for our technology and I am delighted that following very encouraging proof of concept studies with Intract’s Soteria technology we can now announce this extended and accelerating collaboration.”

The collaboration will focus initially on a preclinically validated Elasmogen compound as treatment for inflammatory bowel disease, with the expectation that full clinical assessment of the oral formulation will begin in Q2 2021.

About Elasmogen Limited

Company Contact: Caroline Barelle, CEO, Elasmogen.  caroline.barelle@elasmogen.com

Spun-out from the University of Aberdeen in 2016, Elasmogen is developing soloMERs™; fully humanized, next generation, single chain therapeutics for auto-inflammatory diseases and cancer.  soloMERs™ are proprietary humanized clinical candidates derived from VNARS (variable new-antigen receptors) which exist naturally in sharks as high affinity binding domains.  With a different ancestral origin from antibodies this example of 400 million year old convergent evolution places VNARs outside of the complex patent landscape that describes and protects antibody drug discovery and has produced the smallest (9% of the size of an antibody) and most robust naturally occurring binding domain.  Elasmogen is unique in its capacity to isolate and develop soloMERs™, with a multi-layered IP position covering the platform, formats, products and process including an exclusive license to over 25 patents granted in the US, Europe and other territories.    

About Intract Pharma Limited

Intract Pharma is an oral drug delivery specialist, developing state-of-the-art formulation technologies and unique gastrointestinal models to develop advanced new therapeutics. Since its inception, Intract has pursued innovation in oral drug delivery as a means to improve on current therapies, making them safer and more effective for patients. Soteria® is available for license exclusively from Intract Pharma. For more information visit www.intractpharma.com