9th Mar 2016 09:59
LONDON (Alliance News) - Abzena PLC Wednesday said it has made "strong progress" as it continues to integrate two recently acquired businesses into the group and said it expects the strong momentum experienced in the second half of its financial year to continue for the foreseeable future.
"Progress has been strong during the period. Both US acquisitions are settling into the group well and plans are being implemented to upgrade their capabilities and expand their facilities. We have also seen continued positive progress in the licence portfolio with another 'Abzena inside' product entering clinical development," said Chief Executive John Burt.
The life sciences group acquired San Diego-based contract biopharmaceutical manufacturing and development firm PacificGMP and Bristol-based contract chemistry and bioconjugation business The Chemistry Research Solution in the final quarter of 2015 to broaden its service offering.
Following those acquisitions, Abzena's operations are now conducted through four trading companies, adding those two new companies to its existing Antitope and PolyTherics units.
However, Abzena plans to brand those four companies under the Abzena name by the middle of 2016 to reinforce the company's integrated offering and to provide a single identity for its services and technologies.
The integration of the two new companies is "progressing well", and Abzena is currently developing the capability to provide PacficGMP's manufacturing of conjugation reagents for antibody drug conjugates in Bristol in the US.
Another programme to expand PacificGMP's manufacturing capacity in San Diego is also set to start before the end of this month.
"The group has seen a positive response from customers to the integrated services it can offer for biopharmaceutical development following the acquisitions of PacificGMP and The Chemistry Research Solution," said Abzena.
"Contract bookings have been strong across the group from new and existing customers with significant opportunities for customers to benefit from leveraging the breadth of Abzena's offering which includes immunogenicity assessment, antibody engineering and manufacturing, chemistry services and bioconjugation technologies," the company added.
In addition, Abzena said it has formed a marketing alliance with antibody discovery services company FairJourney Biologics (Portugal), in another effort to expand its range of services. The deal enables Abzena to offer antibody discovery services to its partners and FairJourney Biologics to offer immunogenicity assessment and analytical services to its clients.
"The combined offering from both companies will provide a continuum of services from antibody discovery to PacificGMP manufacture for Phase I and II clinical trials," said the company.
The company's portfolio of 'Abzena Inside' products has also shown good progress after it added an additional Composite Human Antibody product which is being taken into clinical development by a US biotech firm. The portfolio of products is aimed at generating royalty payments for the company and to further product development with other companies.
A separate Composite Human Antibody is being developed by a different US biotech partner, and a Phase1a clinical study has been completed that has demonstrated the proof-of-mechanism of the product, the company said.
That product will now undergo a Phase1b study, focused on patients with a range of rare diseases.
In February, one of Abzena's partners, Gilead Sciences Inc, said it plans to launch a Phase II clinical test for GS-5745, another Composite Human Antibody, focused on both chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cystic fibrosis. That will happen sometime this year, and Gilead has also said it will start a Phase II study of the same product in rheumatoid arthritis in 2016.
At the same time of that announcement, Gilead reiterated that the Phase II studies with simtuzumab were continuing in patients with non-alcoholic steatohepatitis and primary sclerosing cholangitis following a review by the data monitoring committee.
Gilead had previously announced that a Phase II study of simtuzumab in patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis had been stopped.
Lastly, Abzena said it will receive an initial licence and target nomination fee from the licence agreement signed with a publicly-listed US biotech company back in January. That agreement concerns Abzena's proprietary ADC linker technology, ThioBridge, which links antibodies and other proteins to drugs.
In addition to the initial fees, Abzena said it could secure up to USD150.0 million in further licence fees and milestone payments from ThioBridge, in addition to royalties generated from the sale of ThioBridge products that are developed under the agreement.
"The agreement for ThioBridge with a large US biotech company demonstrates the value of our proprietary technology in creating novel ADCs. We continue to find new ways of expanding our range of offerings, by working with specialists such as FairJourney Biologics," said Burt.
"We expect to maintain this level of momentum for the foreseeable future. More partner projects will move towards the clinic and, as part of that journey, they will benefit from our increased capabilities," he added.
Abzena shares were trading up 1.5% to 50.24 pence per share on Wednesday morning.
By Joshua Warner; [email protected]; @JoshAlliance
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