
arGEN-X is creating first and best in class antibody therapeutics with highly differentiated target product profiles. The presentation will showcase the attributes of SIMPLE Antibody™ in addressing the most challenging, high value targets in disease.ĪrGEN-X is a clinical stage human therapeutic antibody company that is rapidly developing a product pipeline using its unique suite of antibody technologies. Professor de Haard will present the Nav1.7 program for the first time in public forum in an arGEN-X-sponsored platform presentation at the 11 th Annual 'Discovery on Target' conference, Boston, MA, USA ( September 24-26, 2013). We are eager to broaden this campaign in partnership now and progress our most promising leads into development." Once again, our technology platform has enabled us to generate novel antibody leads against a complex and high value target, confirming its huge potential in the dynamic therapeutic antibody space. "By delivering potent antagonists of a target as complex as Nav1.7, SIMPLE Antibody™ has exceeded all our expectations. "This is a very important antibody discovery success for arGEN-X" said Hans de Haard, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer of arGEN-X. Further specificity analysis reveals a subset of functional antibody clones capable of recognizing the rodent ortholog of the target, enabling in vivo pharmacology studies.ĪrGEN-X's Nav1.7 research program has been supported by a grant of €1.3 million awarded by the Institute for the Promotion of Innovation by Science and Technology in Flanders (IWT), specifically to enable arGEN-X to leverage SIMPLE Antibody™ into challenging disease targets. Several antibody candidates tested in in vitro electrophysiology assays have been shown to potently antagonize the function of the channel. Using the SIMPLE Antibody™ platform, arGEN-X scientists have isolated a diverse panel of human Nav1.7-specific antibodies that possess such selectivity and lack cross-reactivity with related Nav family members. Drugs targeting ion channels such as Nav1.7 require exquisite target selectivity and specificity to avoid unwanted side effects, which makes antibodies a preferred and highly desirable class of drug. Nav1.7 has been thoroughly validated as a therapeutic target in chronic pain, yet no antibody-based antagonists have been developed to date.
