While the company does not anticipate using the approach to develop RNAi-based drugs itself, it hopes that it will be able to out-license the technology to a partner interested in taking it forward into the clinic.
City of Hope will then use Affomix's recombinant antibodies to generate proteomic profiles characteristic of a number of cancers, such as renal and prostate.
The $200,000 grant also dovetails with an existing grant under which the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center and Pure Vaccine Solutions aim to look for new disease-specific biomarkers for West Nile virus. Both Receptor Logic and Pure Vaccine Solutions are portfolio companies of VC shop Emergent Technologies.
Clinical Data's PGx Health division will work with researchers at the university to discover and validate variants in the Fc gamma receptor genes, which they believe could potentially predict patient response to monoclonal antibody therapies.
Merck, Medarex, and UMass' MBL Ink mAb deal; Vandy licenses cancer Rx assay to DiaTech; MolecularMD sub-licenses OHSU CML mutation test to Mayo Clinic, and more …
