ADAC technology platform

Application of ADAC technology will enable development of highly targeted, immunotherapeutic treatments capable of generating an enhanced immune response and with a prolonged half-life to ensure that the body’s immune system continues to find and destroy targeted cells regardless of location.

This novel platform has the potential to bring new, patient-specific immunotherapeutic treatments to market:

• Improve overall efficacy
  • Deliver a cargo, such as a neoantigenic peptide, based on the genetic profile of the patient or tumor 
• Efficient delivery – design flexibility ensures correct presentation of cargo and can prolong half-life 
  • For example, for delivery of an antigenic peptide to stimulate an immunotherapeutic response
• Reduce development times
  • For example,  eliminate the need to redesign a complete therapeutic molecule by using a universal, non-immunogenic peptide tag to link a tumor-specific, antigenic peptide sequence 
• Contribute to improved cost-effectiveness per treatment
  • Produce small-scale quantities of a highly targeted, patient-specific therapeutic with reduced dosage requirements
• Accelerate the path through clinical trials to final approval
  • lower demands on regulatory requirements 
  • no new chemical entity (NCE) – change only the cargo, most manufacturing release criteria pre-established
  • minimize risk of toxicity – highly targeted, individualized treatments keep dosage to a minimum

The objective of any immunotherapeutic is to target specific cell types while reducing systemic exposure to healthy cells and so minimizing toxicity.  

Current immunotherapeutic approaches work in different ways, but there are still many challenges to overcome, such as ensuring the effectiveness of the induced immune response and managing the high level of variation in individual responses.

Peptide- or antibody-based therapeutics have been used to stimulate de novo generation of T-cell lymphocytes that then target cancerous cells. However, so far these therapies have lacked sufficient efficacy. While cell-based therapies have been more successful in stimulating the body’s immune system, the ex-vivo procedures required are both cumbersome and costly.

Stable affinity-linkage of peptide cargo to antibody carrier – using ADAC technology

Using a monoclonal antibody as a carrier to enable targeted delivery of cytotoxic drug cargos to diseased cells has already led to the development of several FDA-approved antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) for treatment in a range of cancers. However, when cargoes such as antigenic peptides need to be delivered, conventional chemical conjugation methodologies used to link a drug to the antibody present several challenges that can lead to sub-optimal delivery and reduced efficacy.

The Adaptable Drug Affinity Conjugate (ADAC) technology platform utilizes an affinity-based biomolecular interaction to link a peptide cargo to its antibody carrier.

• Unlimited design flexibility facilitates development of individualized treatments based on the genetic profile of a patient’s tumor
• The stable affinity-link between carrier and cargo improves peptide stability and efficiency of delivery
• The ability to carry and correctly present the antigenic peptide cargo has the potential to greatly increase efficacy

A high-affinity interaction between a short non-immunogenic peptide-tag (pTag) and a single-chain fragment (scFv) of the antibody enables attachment of the peptide cargo.