San Diego, CA — Allele Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Allele), a San Diego-based biotechnology company and the first US company to have worked on the development of camelid antibodies, today announced the issuance of U.S. Patent No. 12,404,552 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) on a novel process of finding affinity fragments of antibodies, including the VHH single-domain antibodies, and T-Cell Receptors (TCRs). According to the method disclosed in the patent, these affinity molecules can be selected from candidate pools without performing any affinity selection, such as phage display or ELISA panning, or combining physical separation and multiomics. As a consequence, the process of antibody selection is significantly sped up and covers a more diverse range of obtained antibodies.
One particularly useful aspect of the invention is the use of the host’s own cells expressing antigens that are difficult to create recombinant proteins as immunogen. These targets can be GPCRs and other receptors, highly post translationally modified proteins, and key proteins complexed with other molecules. Once developed, the antibody fragments, particularly the single-domain nanoantibodies (also known as nanobodies), can have unique potentials in biological therapy applications, such as multivalent and/or multi-epitopic on the same antigen for added affinity, or steeper on-and-off affinity slope to avoid off-target binding. They can also be used to easily create multi-specific antibody drugs simultaneously targeting different antigens; a popular area of therapeutics development.
Related to cell therapy platforms, nicely fitting Allele Biotech’s own iPSC-derived regenerative, oncology, and antiinflammation cell therapies, these affinity modules can be used as unconventional CAR for CAR-T or CAR-NK, for armored CAR-T, or as cell-delivered, in vivo secreted payloads, due to their smaller sizes and ease of use as transgenes.
This new patent builds upon Allele’s decades-long history of pioneering antibody technology development and innovative applications of nanoantibodies for disease treatment, diagnostics, as well as research tools. Allele Reagents is the first seller of VHH-based affinity purification beads (FP-nAb) for co-immunoprecipitation in the US market and is now providing a portfolio of such antibodies for a large proportion of the most popular fluorescent proteins, including our own mNeonGreen, mMaple, mWasabi, mTFP1, among others.
About Allele Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Founded in 1999, Allele Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a privately held company based in San Diego, California. The company is a recognized leader in stem cell innovation, nanobody development, and fluorescent protein engineering, with a focus on enabling technologies for cell therapy, synthetic biology, and drug discovery.
