Ubix Therapeutics, Debiopharm team up to develop new anticancer modality

South Korea’s biotech firm Ubix Therapeutics and Swiss-based biopharmaceutical company Wednesday announced an agreement for their joint research of a new drug discovery platform for more effective and longer-acting antibody-drug conjugates against tumor cells.

The two companies are aiming to develop the new modality called Antibody Degraducer Conjugates (ADeC) by combining one of Ubix’s Degraducer molecules with Debiopharm’s antibody drug conjugate linker Multilink. Degraducer linked to therapeutic antibodies via Multilink will improve drug targeting and have synergistic effect on tumor cells.

Linkers play a critical role in the function of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) as they help to attach the antibody to the cytotoxic payload, stabilize the molecule during circulation, and release the toxic payload specifically into the target tissue.

Multilink is a new cleavable linker platform that allows the loading of multiple drug payloads on an antibody. Degraducer is a powerful, bifunctional, inhibitor technology that enables selective target protein degradation and prolonged therapeutic effects.

Combining these advanced solutions offers the unique opportunity to produce new type of antibody conjugates with dual molecular targeting and prolonged therapeutic effects, available for the treatment of various cancers, according to Ubix Therapeutics.

“We believe this collaboration will open up new opportunities to develop advanced cancer therapy," said BK Seo, CEO of Ubix Therapeutics.

“We hope this plan to achieve a pre-clinical, proof-of-concept for antibody degrader conjugates will boost the efficacy, precision and safety of antibody-based therapies and lead to clinically meaningful solutions and improved life quality for cancer patients,” said Cedric Sager, CEO of Debiopharm Research & Manufacturing.”

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