Tagworks Pharmaceuticals?is developing a unique approach towards antibody-based imaging and therapy. Tagworks? technology enables the actuation of tagged antibodies through selective chemical manipulation in vivo, improving the efficacy of established approaches such as Radioimmuno-imaging and ?therapy and Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADCs).
ADCs are highly potent biopharmaceuticals that use the targeting ability of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to selectively bind to tumor cells where the conjugated cancer drug is released. The antibody and the small molecule drug are bound by a linker. Only when the linker is cleaved do these cell-killing drugs become active. This generates an excellent control mechanism of drug activation, allowing an increase of the therapeutic window and thereby the use of highly potent drugs. Current ADC technologies rely on biological cleavage of the linker. The ADC has to bind to a tumor cell-specific membrane receptor and subsequently be internalized in the tumor cell for cleavage of the linker – and thus activation of the drug – to occur. As the number of tumor-specific receptors that ensure efficient internalization is limited, especially in solid tumors, a wide range of cancer-targets remains out of reach of ADCs.
Tagworks tackles this problem by focusing on chemically triggered release mechanisms for ADCs. Recently, the company succeeded in modifying the fastest and highly selective click reaction, the inverse-electron-demand-Diels-Alder reaction, in such a way that we achieved selective bioorthogonal release. An unprecedented approach that holds great promise for employing chemically triggered release of a drug from a tumor-bound ADC. This would mean a substantial expansion of the scope of suitable ADC targets to include for example slow- or non-internalizing targets and extracellular-matrix constituents that are not suitable for biological cleavage mechanisms.
Tagworks Pharmaceuticals is a privately held pharmaceutical company based in Eindhoven, The Netherlands, focused on the in vivo assembly and actuation of diagnostic and therapeutic antibody conjugates. Founded in 2011, Tagworks is a spin-out of?Royal Philips Electronics,?and originates from Philips? molecular imaging expertise.
The company’s is headquartered at the High Tech Campus in the?Center for Imaging Research and Education?(CIRE), which is a shared life science facility between Philips, the Technical University Eindhoven, and third parties. The >2000 m2?infrastructure at CIRE, supported by dedicated scientists and technicians, includes organic and protein chemistry, molecular and cell biology, radiochemistry, and imaging labs. In addition, the Company works with several CRO partners.
High Tech Campus 11
5656 AE Eindhoven
The Netherlands
