LONDON – Dutch start-up AIMM Therapeutics NV has inked a deal with a pharma partner, providing the means to ramp up development of its novel antibody platforms, and has attracted a leading immunologist and former head of the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research, Jan de Vries, as CEO to spearhead that effort.

The pharma partner has not been named, but de Vries said the agreement involves an equity investment, underpinning plans to boost commercialization activities, including advancing two in-house programs into clinical development. "We are in a healthy situation and can hold off needing to raise any venture capital at the moment," he told BioWorld Today.

De Vries joins the Amsterdam, the Netherlands-based company alongside a new vice president of business development, John Womelsdorf, as the first products generated through AIMM's technologies are poised to enter clinical development. Those are antibodies against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and seasonal flu, each of which is being developed by (again unnamed) pharma partners. De Vries said the flu product had missed entering testing in this year's flu season in the northern hemisphere and he now expects trials to start early in 2013, during the southern hemisphere flu season.

The RSV and flu products are based on AIMM's technology for selecting antibodies from the B cells of people who have combatted infections. Those can be affinity-matured without the need for molecular engineering, using another proprietary process. In addition, AIMM has a linker technology for combining two antibodies in one. It has applied that to a second, bi-specific flu product containing antibodies against both seasonal and pandemic flu, and that has been shown to be active in a mouse model.

In addition to RSV and the two flu products, AIMM has a program against methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, which also is partnered, and antibodies against cytomegalovirus and hepatitis C.

The platform technology also can be used to generate antibodies for treating cancer and inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Part of the brief of de Vries – who is co-discoverer of interleukins -4, -10 and -14 – is to branch out into those indications.

"The reason I accepted the position as CEO is that the technology is very interesting in terms of delivering antibodies of very good quality in a very short time. AIMM has a very efficient way of immortalizing the human B-cell repertoire, and the B cells, which are immortalized, are very stable and can be cloned. After only three days, there is enough for functional assays," de Vries said.

The easier route to validating and fine-tuning the technology was through anti-infective products, and now it is ready to be applied in the other therapeutic areas, de Vries said. The first two cancer programs are in melanoma and pancreatic cancer. In addition, AIMM has an early stage program targeting an undisclosed cytokine for treating autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.

As to whether the world needs another antibody platform technology, de Vries claimed AIMM's products "are coveted by big pharma."

With its coffers reinforced through the latest pharma deal, AIMM now is planning to take the two lead cancer programs into the clinic under its own steam. The company is talking to clinical collaborators to scope Phase I/IIa trials.

"We can complete proof-of-concept studies in a short time with a small number of patients. These will form the basis for future partnerships," de Vries said.