TEMPE, Ariz.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–iMetabolic Biopharma Corporation (iMBP) announces expansion of its strategic partnership relationship with Ligand Pharmaceuticals, building on an earlier alliance agreement initiated in 2018, giving access to Ligand’s OmniAb platform.
Dr. Urban A. Kiernan, iMBP’s founder and CEO (image courtesy of iMetabolic BioPharma Corporation)
In this new agreement, iMBP gains access to additional OmniAb species and technologies, enabling the acceleration of iMBP’s development of assets through its iPlatform™ Technology. This strengthened partnership’s goal is to allow iMBP to generate a robust pipeline of therapeutic candidate molecules with clinically desired results, improved targeting, greater precision, improved safety, at lower cost, and application to a broad range of indications and disease areas. These molecules provide a unique set of complex biological actions that we think can be selectively engineered to improve target pathogen binding, and to elicit specific biological function for enhanced efficacy, clearance and/or administration. iMBP’s iPlatform™ pipeline expansion is building upon the accelerating progress in development of its primary iMBP-001 asset.
Dr. Urban A. Kiernan, iMBP’s founder and CEO, commented, “Ligand has been an outstanding strategic partner in fostering the growth and development of our company. The OmniAb antibody discovery platform has helped accelerate our discovery programs by streamlining both cost and time, thus leading to our program expansion and successful development of the iPlatform™.”
“The iMetabolic pipeline molecules can be thought of, in essence, as gene therapy implemented purely at the protein level, and represent a strategy that we would be excited to see emerge as a clinically-viable modality,” said Bill Harriman, Ph. D., Senior Vice President of Antibody Discovery at Ligand Pharmaceuticals. “Leveraging multiple host species, the OmniAb platform is uniquely positioned to deliver antibodies to precise epitopes that will enable this approach.”
About Ligand’s OmniAb® Antibody Discovery Technology Suite
Ligand’s OmniAb technology suite includes a proprietary antigen production platform, transgenic animal platforms that leverage four species, and proprietary high throughput B cell screening platforms that together can be utilized to deliver best-in-class fully human antibody leads for an expanded range of therapeutic targets. OmniRat® animals represent the industry’s first human monoclonal antibody technology based on rats. Because they have a complete immune system with a diverse antibody repertoire, OmniRat animals generate antibodies with human idiotypes as effectively as wild-type animals make rat antibodies. OmniMouse® is a transgenic mouse that complements OmniRat and expands epitope coverage. OmniFlic® is an engineered rat with a fixed light chain for development of bispecific, fully human antibodies. OmniChicken® animals comprise the industry’s first human monoclonal antibody technology based on chickens, and are especially useful in generating antibodies to highly conserved or difficult targets as well as antibodies that bind to pan-mammalian epitopes. The OmniClic® platform also leverages the chicken host system, but is specifically developed to facilitate the generation of common light chain bispecific antibodies. The OmniTaur platform leverages unique structural features of cow antibodies to address complex therapeutic targets. All of the OmniAb animal platforms, OmniRat, OmniFlic, OmniMouse, OmniChicken, OmniClic and OmniTaur, use patented technology, have broad freedom to operate, produce highly diversified, fully human antibody repertoires that are optimized in vivo for low immunogenicity, reliable manufacturability, and high therapeutic efficacy.
About iMetabolic Biopharma Corporation
iMetabolic Biopharma Corporation (iMBP) is a platform biopharmaceutical company developing safe, effective, and affordable First-In-Class therapeutics using its cornerstone technology, the iPlatform™. Based in Tempe, AZ, iMBP has initiated its discovery program and is in the early stages of establishing its peptide modulated fusion protein drug pipeline. With an initial focus on metabolic and cardiometabolic indications, the iPlatform™ candidates can expand into a number of high-need disease areas with great precision that will achieve better, safer, and more cost-effective patient outcomes. For more information, please visit www.imbiopharma.com.
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About Ligand Pharmaceuticals
Ligand is a revenue-generating biopharmaceutical company focused on developing or acquiring technologies that help pharmaceutical companies discover and develop medicines. Ligand’s business model creates value for stockholders by providing a diversified portfolio of biotech and pharmaceutical product revenue streams that are supported by an efficient and low corporate cost structure. Ligand’s goal is to offer investors an opportunity to participate in the promise of the biotech industry in a profitable, diversified and lower-risk business than a typical biotech company. Ligand’s business model is based on doing what Ligand does best: drug discovery, early-stage drug development, product reformulation and partnering. Ligand partners with other pharmaceutical companies to leverage what they do best (late-stage development, regulatory management and commercialization) to ultimately generate our revenue. Ligand’s OmniAb® technology platform is a patent-protected transgenic animal platform used in the discovery of fully human mono- and bispecific therapeutic antibodies. The Captisol platform technology is a patent-protected, chemically modified cyclodextrin with a structure designed to optimize the solubility and stability of drugs. Ligand’s Protein Expression Technology® is a robust, validated, cost-effective and scalable approach to recombinant protein production, and is especially well-suited for complex, large-scale protein production that cannot be made by more traditional systems. Ab Initio™ technology and services for the design and preparation of customized antigens enable the successful discovery of therapeutic antibodies against difficult-to-access cellular targets. Ligand has established multiple alliances, licenses and other business relationships with the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies including Amgen, Merck, Pfizer, Sanofi, Janssen, Takeda, Gilead Sciences and Baxter International. For more information, please visit www.ligand.com.
Contacts
iMetabolic Biopharma Corporation
Urban A. Kiernan, Ph.D.
info@imbiopharma.com
(480) 939-5770
@iMetabiopharma