Therapeutic Pipeline Investment aims to Reduce Developmental Risk

An investment of €1M ($1.2M) in a new pipeline of complex therapeutic targets and native antigens of high relevance for pharmaceutical companies has been announced by French biotech Calixar. This strategic investment, supported by Bpifrance investment bank, will enable the company to provide native and functional membrane therapeutic targets (GPCRs, ion channels, transporters, receptors and viral targets) and advance drugs and vaccines developments.

“Collective studies agree that the pharmaceutical industry needs to optimise its drug development model,” said Emmanuel Dejean, founder and CEO of Calixar. “In Calixar’s view, the problems faced in clinical development are related particularly to the unreliability of the therapeutic targets isolated upstream.”

Membrane therapeutic targets are essential as templates in the development of drug candidates, both in small molecule screening and in the manufacture of therapeutic antibodies, or as antigens in the development of new vaccines. There is therefore a direct link between the quality of a therapeutic target and the reliability of the biodrug obtained downstream. Today, nearly all the available targets are obtained via denaturing purification and stabilisation procedures, resulting in less than robust drug candidates and vaccines. This also partly explains the clinical phase failures and the poor performance of some drugs on the market.

“We will offer pharma and biotech companies the possibility of saving time and money by entrusting us to develop their future targets,” explained Emmanuel Dejean. “Calixar will invest in 15 highly druggable targets and take on the risks for producing them in a ‘ready-for-drug discovery’ format. Upon validation by our partners, they could have access to exclusive rights on the targets for their applications. The Calixar team will build its contacts with the top 100 pharma/biotech companies to license its pipeline and offer its platform expertise.”

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