Adagene, Inc., a platform-driven, clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company, successfully completed its component of the collaboration with Richard Childs, M.D., Chief of the Laboratory of Transplantation Immunotherapy at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Adagene discovered antibodies that Dr. Child’s lab has turned into a CAR-T cell therapy candidate for the potential treatment of renal cell carcinoma, the most common type of kidney cancer in adults, according to Frost & Sullivan.

Human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs), remnants of ancient germ-line infections with exogenous retroviruses, are estimated to make up to 8% of the human genome. A growing number of HERV genes and proteins have been found to be expressed in different cancers, and they might represent new targets for tumor immunotherapy.

The NIH will be responsible for the manufacturing and clinical development of the CAR-T cell therapy candidate.

NEObody is part of Adagene’s Dynamic Precision Library (DPL) platform, which combines computational biology and synthetic biology to enable the selection of antibody candidates with novel epitopes, robust CMC profiles and desired safety and efficacy attributes for downstream development.

“Adagene is honored to have worked with Dr. Childs and his laboratory on this novel family of HERV as a potential target for tumor immunotherapy,” said Peter Luo, Ph.D., Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Adagene. “Using our NEObody? technology, we identified novel antibodies against HERV expressed targets in renal cell carcinoma, which to our knowledge has never before been accomplished. We look forward to the advancement of the first-in-class CAR-T cell therapy Dr. Childs’ laboratory has pioneered based on antibodies discovered at Adagene.”