[Asia Economy Reporter Hyungsoo Park] Aprogen, which is pursuing a merger with Aprogen KIC, announced on the 29th that it has received patent registration approvals from various countries around the world for two bispecific antibody platform technologies it owns.
The bispecific antibody production platform technologies owned by Aprogen are two technologies called SHOCAP and CHIMPS.
The SHOCAP technology was patented in Korea, Australia, and the United States in December 2017, June 2018, and November 2018, respectively. It has received registration approval from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office. Reviews are currently underway in Europe and China.
The CHIMPS technology has been filed for patents in 23 major countries worldwide. Recently, patent registrations were approved in Korea and South Africa. A company official stated, “CHIMPS technology is a core foundational technology for which the company has devoted great effort to obtain broad patent recognition in as many countries as possible,” and “reviews are currently underway in 21 major countries, including the United States and Europe.”
The official added, "We are the first bio company to own two universal platform technology patents capable of producing any type of antibody as a bispecific antibody," and introduced Aprogen as "the only domestic company holding bispecific antibody platform patents in advanced countries such as the United States."
Aprogen has been developing bispecific antibody technology since 2009 by utilizing its affiliate, iVentures. According to the contract between the two companies, Aprogen holds exclusive rights to use both SHOCAP and CHIMPS technologies. A company representative said, “The two technologies each have different advantages,” and “depending on the type of immune function to be induced through bispecific antibodies or the characteristics of the target antibody, we have gained technological flexibility to design the most suitable bispecific antibody.”
The SHOCAP and CHIMPS bispecific antibody platform technologies are the world’s only technologies that allow the two heavy chains and two light chains constituting an antibody to maintain the natural antibody structure while perfectly forming all desired combinations. A company official explained, “Until now, technologies developed by competitors involved adding additional antigen-binding sites to the ends of light or heavy chains,” and “this altered the antibody structure, causing defects in some immune responses of the antibody or failing to perfectly form light chain combinations, which required difficult purification efforts to remove defective combinations.” He continued, “SHOCAP and CHIMPS technologies perfectly solve these existing drawbacks with minimal amino acid substitutions.”
Aprogen is developing a triple-negative breast cancer treatment and an acute leukemia treatment by applying CHIMPS technology to the CA12 antibody and CD43 antibody owned by Aprogen KIC, respectively. The bispecific antibody technology is also being applied to the coronavirus-blocking fusion antibody developed by Aprogen in 2015 to develop a COVID-19 treatment.
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