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Igenica gets SBIR grant to develop new antibody drug conjugate technology

Igenica Biotherapeutics has received small business innovation research (SBIR) grant of $215,740 from the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to support continued development of its SNAP site-specific ADC linker technology.

The company’s SNAP technology provides a simple, chemically-driven method for linking any anti-cancer antibody and small molecule cytotoxic drug to produce ADC products with optimal and uniform ratios of drug to antibody.

Igenica chief executive officer Mary Haak-Frendscho said drug companies are aggressively pursuing ADCs as powerful new anti-cancer medicines comprised of a monoclonal antibody, a linker and a payload.

"SNAP is a transformative, chemically-driven and broadly applicable technology that will accelerate the development of next-generation cancer therapeutics designed to selectively target cancer cells with potent cytotoxic agents," Haak-Frendscho said.

"We are using this platform to strengthen our internal product pipeline and also will make it available to select partners."

The current generation of ADCs, developed using conventional chemistry approaches, provide limited benefits to patients because they are heterogeneous drug mixtures containing variants with sub-optimal pharmaceutical properties.

SNAP technology includes a cutting-edge and proprietary linker that yields homogeneous ADCs armed with the optimal quantity of toxin payload to kill cancer cells.