The News

Sofinnova Partners invests in Ablynx NV, a Belgian Biopharmaceutical Start up

30/07/2002

Ghent, Belgium, 25 September 2002 – Ablynx nv today announced that it has completed a 5 million euro venture financing round. Investors are GIMV (Belgium), Sofinnova Partners (France), and Gilde Investment Management (the Netherlands). The recently founded biopharmaceutical company will develop and commercialize a novel class of single-domain antibodies for health care applications, with a primary focus on therapeutics. Ablynx, headquartered in Ghent, is a spin-off of VIB (Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology, Belgium) and VUB (Free University of Brussels, Belgium).

The “Ablynx antibodies” are derived from single-domain antibodies that naturally occur in certain animal species belonging to the Camelidae (camel, dromedary and llama), and that were initially discovered by researchers at the Free University of Brussels. Additional research conducted over the last few years by a multidisciplinary team within the Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB), revealed that this novel class of antibodies exhibits some unique advantages over conventional multi-domain antibodies for use as pharmaceutical drugs. This extensive effort resulted in the creation of a broad knowledge base and an impressive intellectual property (IP) estate comprising over 40 patents and patent applications. Ablynx has obtained exclusive rights to this knowledge and IP for the field of human and animal health care, including proteomics applications.

Ablynx’ antibodies are engineered in such a way that they contain a single antigen-binding domain and are only one tenth the size of a conventional antibody. Because of their small size, they can penetrate more effectively into organs or tissues upon administration as therapeutic drugs. Moreover, Ablynx antibodies are able to bind to epitopes that are not (or only rarely) accessible to conventional antibodies, such as active site cavities in enzymes. They also bind with high specificity and affinity to a broad spectrum of potential disease targets and exhibit superior solubility and stability, even resisting the action of gut proteases. Their simple structure allows them to be efficiently produced through microbial fermentation, permitting cost-effective production on a large scale. Ablynx believes that these unique features will enable the Company to rapidly develop proprietary drugs with improved characteristics to compete effectively in the growing market of antibody-based therapeutics.

Dr. Mark Vaeck has recently joined Ablynx as Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Vaeck has worked in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry since 1983. Before joining Ablynx, he was Chief Operating Officer of Ceres Inc., a plant genomics company based in Malibu, California. Prior to that, he held senior management positions at Keygene, EuroCetus (Chiron Corp.), UCB Pharma, and Plant Genetic Systems. Dr. Vaeck received his Ph.D. in Immunology from the Free University of Brussels.

 

Ablynx’ first-round financing of EUR 5 million was provided by an international consortium of reputed venture capital companies with a known track record in biotech financing: GIMV-Biotech Fund Flanders (Belgium), Sofinnova Partners (France), and Gilde (the Netherlands). The Company is headquartered in Ghent and has research collaborations with VIB and VUB. Ablynx currently employs 10 people and intends to grow to about 50 within the next two years.

For more information about Ablynx:
Mark Vaeck, CEO, mark.vaeck@ablynx.com