Glyco-Engineer: The new border of biotherapies
Long relegated to the background of bioproduction, glycanes, these complex sugar structures fixed on the surface of proteins, are today a critical lever in the development of safer and more effective therapies. With a fundraising of 5.5 million euros announced today, the Parisian biotech Kyron.bio intends to master glycanes an industrial standard.
A forgotten variable of therapeutic conception
Biotherapies based on monoclonal antibodies are today a major class of oncology drugs and autoimmune diseases. Their mechanism of action, targeting specific proteins via the immune system, makes them both powerful and sensitive. It is precisely on this last point that glycosylation comes into play.
“The glycans were largely under-exploited, limiting their potential during the design of drugs,” says Emilia McLaughlin, founder and CEO of Kyron.bio. These sugars, which decorate the surface of therapeutic proteins, can significantly influence immune tolerance, stability and half-life of the drug.
Technology to homogenize the invisible
The technological heart of Kyron.bio is based on a platform capable of finely controlling the n-glycosylation, this natural cellular process of adding glycanes. In conventional production processes, this step remains little controlled, generating great structural heterogeneity. This variability increases the risk that the drug is recognized as a foreign element by the patient’s body, which can cause a deleterious immune response.
Kyron.bio announces a homogeneity rate above 97 %, in particular thanks to two proprietary bricks: genetically modified choi cell lines to stabilize production, and glyco-engineering tools capable of precisely orienting the structure of glycanes on antibodies. The whole makes the solution compatible with existing industrial infrastructure.
A response to the limits of current treatments
In chronic diseases, the persistence of treatments is often called into question by the appearance of secondary immune reactions. In the early phases of development, the drug candidates sometimes fail not on their effectiveness, but on their ability to pass tolerance tests. Kyron.bio technology is involved at this crossroads.
According to Alexis Houssou, Managing Partner of the HCVC fund which leads this financing tour, “their advance in the control of glycanes could allow a paradigm change for antibody -based treatments”. Financial support will allow Biotech to strengthen its teams, speed up its preclinical work and collaborate with pharmaceutical laboratories on new generation antibodies.
Expanded therapeutic perspectives
If glycans are today studied mainly in the context of antibodies, their role extends to other types of protein, especially in infectious diseases. The platform developed by Kyron.bio thus opens the way to a finer molecular engineering, in which glycosylation is no longer suffered but integrated from the design of the drug.
Biotech, installed in Paris Biotech Santé, benefits in parallel from the support of the EIC Transition program of the European Innovation Council, a sign of growing interest in technological approaches combining advanced cellular biology and industrial applications.
For Emilia McLaughlin, this is a profound change in the way drugs are designed: “By achieving complete control of glycosylation, we finally make the use of glycanes possible in the design of therapeutic molecules. »»
Kyron.bio raised 5.5 million euros from HCVC, Verve Ventures, Entrepreneur First, Saras Capital and several Business Angels. This funding will continue to develop its owner platform, strengthen its teams and finance the first preclinical studies. This lifting is part of the launch of the EIC Transition project, supported by the European Innovation Council. Founded and led by Dr Emilia McLaughlin, Kyron.bio is installed in Paris Biotech Health (Cochin Hospital) and specializes in the control of glycosylation of therapeutic antibodies. Its approach combines modified cell lines and patented glyco-engineering tools, with oncology applications, autoimmune and infectious diseases.
