Biocytogen announces the launch of the 'Nano 100 Project' to develop fully human therapeutic nanobodies against 100+ targets

Recently, Biocytogen (Beijing) Pharmaceutical Technology Co., Ltd. ("Biocytogen", stock code: 02315. HK) announced the launch of the "Nano 100 Program" to develop fully human therapeutic nanobodies against 100+ targets. The goal of this program is to develop fully human nanobody drugs on a large scale based on Biocytogen's self-developed fully human nanobody mouse RenNano® and high-throughput in vitro in vivo screening platform.

Compared with traditional antibodies, nanobodies have a small molecular weight and excellent tissue penetration ability. It generally has a long CDR3 region for easy identification of occult epitopes. At the same time, because of its simple structure, good stability of nanobodies, easy production and engineering transformation, it is widely used to construct cell therapy, dual antibodies (adapters), multiple antibodies, antibody conjugate drugs/nuclides and other drug forms.

On the basis of the fully human antibody mouse RenMab®, after years of efforts, Biocytogen has successfully developed the fully human nanobody mouse RenNano. RenNano mice carry intact human antibody heavy-chain variable region genome sequences that can produce heavy-chain-only antibodies whose variable regions (nanobodies) can be used for drug development without in vitro humanization modification. Our results show that immunizing RenNano mice with different antigens can produce a robust immune response, obtaining only heavy-chain antibodies with diverse CDR3 sequences, abundant recognition epitopes, and high affinity at the nM level. Existing in vitro and in vivo experiments have shown that these RenNano-derived antibodies have good biological functions.

Based on the advantages of RenNano mice in the discovery of fully human nanobodies, Biocytogen launched the "Nano 100 Project" to develop fully human therapeutic nanobodies for 100+ targets, including tumor-associated antigens, GPCRs, immune checkpoints, cytokines, neurokines, etc. Through this program, Biocytogen hopes to cooperate with global biopharma/technology companies to combine its large-scale nanobody development advantages with the development advantages of partners in related therapeutic drugs, especially cell therapy, biantibodies, polyantibodies, radiotherapy and other drugs, to jointly develop new drugs with first-in-class or best-in-class potential.

Dr. Shen Yuelei, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Biocytogen, said: "We believe that the Nano 100 program, with its rapid access to high-quality fully human nanobodies for specific targets, can provide better and more diversified nanobody components for global partners to support innovative drug development, and is also an important complement to Biocytoto's 'Thousand Mouse Antibodies' program." ”

About RenNano®

Biocytogen uses its self-developed ultra-large fragment chromosome engineering technology SUPCE to replace the antibody heavy chain variable region gene of mice with the corresponding gene in situ in adults, and through further modification of the constant region of the antibody, RenNano mice that can spontaneously grow into heavy chain antibodies (HCAb) can be obtained. Compared with the few other nanobody models in the world, Biocytogen RenNano mice have the most complete gene replacement for antibody heavy chain variable regions, and the full human single-chain antibody sequences produced by them have good diversity and do not need to undergo in vitro humanization modification. Based on the rapid reproductive ability of mice and the mature murine monoclonal antibody preparation technology, RenNano mice can be used for large-scale high-throughput full-human HCAb development compared to other single-chain antibody animals such as alpacas.