Oblique taps into AAX’s seqitope tech

Swedish biotech firm AAX Biotech and Oblique Therapeutics have collaborated to develop and manufacture antibody-based medicines for severe diseases. 

Through this collaboration, Oblique will apply AAX’s seqitope technology to characterize antibody candidates targeting transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1), which is an ion channel that has a central role in peripheral nociception and neurogenic inflammation. 

“This collaboration will leverage Seqitope to characterize antibodies in Oblique Therapeutics’ programs and accelerate its advancement,” Maria Knudsen, CEO for AAX Biotech told BioProcess Insider. 

DepositPhotos/kchungtw

Seqitope technology enables high-throughput and high-resolution epitope mapping based on massive parallel mutagenic scanning enabling antibody drugs to bind to the right epitope on the target molecule in the body. According to the firm, through epitope mapping this can be monitored which makes the process efficient and cost-effective, along with obtaining amino acid resolution, and running many antibodies in parallel. 

“This partnership is focused on drug discovery and development. We will commence with leveraging seqitope for Oblique Therapeutics’ TRPV1 program. Our two companies intend to work in a longer and broader collaboration going forward,” said Knudsen. 

Oblique Therapeutics, which focuses on research on serious pain conditions through its proprietary technology AbiProt, aims to use epitope mapping to work on a stimuli-selective antibody against the pain receptor TRPV1 to maximize pain relief and circumvent side effects. 

Swedish start-up AAX Biotech is a research driven biotechnology company hoping to establish a presence in the antibody development space through its in-house tech platforms Seqitope and Opti-mAb. The Seqitope technology enables epitope mapping, while Optimab stabilizes single chain variable fragments (scFv). According to the firm, both technologies aim to produce better and more effective antibody-based medicines.  

The financials of this collaboration were not disclosed.