Distribution of company announcements to the professional platforms, finance portals and syndication of important corporate news to a wide variety of news aggregators and financial news systems.
Ablynx (EBR:ABLX) GHENT, Belgium, 10 October, 2008 - Ablynx [Euronext Brussels: ABLX], a pioneer in the discovery and development of Nanobodies®, a novel class of antibody-derived therapeutic proteins, announced today it has successfully generated Nanobodies® against several GPCR receptors. Furthermore, Ablynx will present during its R&D update in Ghent today, its new preclinical development programme ALX-0141, a Nanobody® against Receptor Activator for Nuclear Factor kappa B Ligand (RANKL), an important target for bone disorders such as osteoporosis. The Company also provided an update on the significant progress made of its Nanobody® therapeutic pipeline and Nanobody® technology platform.
Nanobodies® are a new class of therapeutic proteins that contain the unique structural and functional properties of naturally-occurring single domain antibodies. Nanobodies® have been generated against over 100 different targets now including complex targets such as GPCRs which are typically extremely difficult to approach with conventional monoclonal antibodies. Nanobody® constructs have been generated against GPCRs with picomolar activity in functional cellular assays such as chemotaxis and cell mobility. Ablynx has validated 25 Nanobody® programmes in relevant in vivo models.
ALX-0141 is the first single domain antibody developed by Ablynx that specifically targets RANKL, an essential regulator of osteoclasts, the cells involved in the breakdown of bone. ALX-0141 is now in preclinical development and Ablynx will progress the programme towards clinical development for osteoporosis.
"We are delighted to present our new preclinical development programme ALX-0141 against RANKL, a key mediator of bone resorption and look forward to advancing this programme towards the clinic. We are also very pleased with the important discovery that we can generate Nanobodies® against different classes of GPCRs. This opens up new opportunities in many new disease areas", said Dr Edwin Moses, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Ablynx. "We continue to be on track to finalise our multi-dose Phase Ib study in patients for our lead programme, ALX-0081 a novel anti-thrombotic, by the end of this year and prepare for the initiation of a Phase II study. We are also progressing well towards our goal of filing five IND equivalents by 2012."
For more information, please contact:
College Hill Life Sciences - for UK/International media enquiries: Sue Charles, Justine Lamond, John McIntyre t: +44 (0)20 7866 7857 f: +44 (0)20 7866 7900 e: ablynx@collegehill.com
Ablynx: Dr Edwin Moses Chairman and CEO t: +32 (0)9 262 00 07 m: +44 (0)7771 954 193 / +32 (0)473 39 50 68 e: edwin.moses@ablynx.com
