Technology Platform
Arana has a powerful protein engineering technology platform that incorporates the company’s Superhumanisation™, Synhumanisation® and EvoGene™ technologies. Application of one or more of these technologies can transform lead proteins, including antibodies, into potent, safe drug candidates.
Superhumanisation™ & Synhumanisation®
Superhumanisation™ compares the structure of the target-binding region of a mouse and a human antibody. It then converts the mouse antibody, which would otherwise be rejected if administered to humans, into a ‘humanised’ form, which can be given safely to patients.
By starting with a rodent antibody and ‘humanising’ it, the Superhumanisation™ technology retains the important properties of the starting antibody more readily than competing approaches. Superhumanisation™ is a thoroughly validated, reliable and safe method to transform mouse antibodies into high-quality therapeutic product candidates and has been successfully used to modify 12 antibodies, with no failures to date.
Synhumanisation®, akin to our Superhumanisation™ technology, can convert antibodies of non-human origin to antibodies suitable for use in humans.
An important advantage of Arana’s Synhumanisation® technology is that for some existing targets it opens up an approach to generate new patentable antibody products that likely fall outside conventional ‘humanisation’, or fully human antibody competitor patents.
EvoGene™
Humanisation typically results in a decreased binding of the antibody to its target resulting in a lower potency. This can be restored or greatly improved, by application of Arana’s EvoGene™ technology.
The EvoGene™ process involves the production of billions of different, slightly mutated variants of the starting product, subsequent testing of these variants for improved binding activity to the target and selection of the best variant for further characterisation. These steps can be repeated to select engineered antibodies with the desired properties suitable for a therapeutic drug.
EvoGene™ uses a unique proprietary method to generate a highly diverse library of variant proteins whereby variants that possess the desired property can be selected for use. Competitor approaches such as phage display require a transformation step that is associated with a significant loss in diversity.
The process has been extensively validated via application to our internal drug pipeline and co-developed products.
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