The
Company’s therapeutic antibody program is based upon the premise
that correctly-folded membrane receptors, when used as immunogens, will
enable the development of antibodies that bind to functional extracellular
domains, and that such antibodies will thus act as agonists or, more
likely, antagonists at that receptor. Receptors are typically present
at very low density on the cell surface and, as a result, it has proven
difficult to generate antibodies to them using a variety of approaches.
M-fold Biotech’s platform enables the development of antibody therapeutics
for high-interest GPCR targets (e.g., chemokine and orphan receptors)
that are difficult to approach in other ways. The Company is presently
working with a number of academic and corporate partners to develop
functional monoclonal antibodies and Fab fragments against a range of
GPCR targets, the most advanced of which are an IL-8 receptor (CXCR1)
and a number of the frizzled (Fzd) receptors.
