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Technology Overview
Proteins are large molecules with important functional roles that represent a growing class of therapeutics. Unmodified proteins generally possess short circulating times that necessitate their frequent administration, often by injection, to achieve therapeutic efficacy. However, certain modifications of proteins that can be appended to their surface have achieved, and hold forth continued promise, of producing superior drugs. A natural protein is not easily modified at specific spots along its large surface by chemical means. The normal course of chemical modification of natural proteins is to produce heterogeneous mixtures. It is difficult, impractical, and not cost- effective to purify individual components from such mixtures. This situation places a limitation on the ability to augment or improve therapeutic properties of a protein.
The Company’s core technology, focused on the chemical modification of proteins, is applicable to site-specifically linking diverse payloads, such as radionuclide chelators for in vivo imaging, and polyethylene glycol polymers and lipids for improving the pharmacokinetics and the formulation of proteins. The Company has prepared a number of highly specialized proprietary ensembles (libraries) of molecules with the potential for site-specific labeling. The Company is pioneering the use of such kinetic labeling libraries which it has prepared in a variety of formats to facilitate site-specific labeling. The technology involves the rapid screening of thousands of molecules, to discover the structural features that best facilitate site-selective attachments. Each molecule in the library possesses a unique structural feature which serves to “chaperone” the labeling entity to sites on the protein target. APT’s linking technology is intended to match specific sites of a protein to the best-fitting molecules and use such structural features to construct commercially viable protein products.
The Company believes that this approach not only has the potential to significantly advance the field of chemical modification of proteins, but should also afford a general approach to site specific labeling. The opportunity for improving existing suboptimal drugs with established markets and needy patient populations, and avoiding the costly and long research and development times required to create or discover new drugs is one of a number of applications that can be envisaged.
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