Epynext Therapeutics is dedicated to the fight against antibiotic resistance, one of the most urgent health threats of our time particularly in hospital settings. Its technological platform enables the production of monoclonal antibodies directed against full membrane antigens. Resulting antibodies have a remarkably high affinity and specificity for their target. A first antibody targeting Pseudomonas aeruginosa strains multi-resistant to antibiotics has demonstrated its ability to inhibit the bacteria both in vitro and in vivo. Louis Farge, President of Epynext Therapeutics, talks about his collaboration with 3Biotech.
In what context and at what stages did 3Biotech intervene in your project?
In June 2021, Epynext Therapeutics, not yet initiated at that time, was labelled Deep Tech and laureate of the iLab competition organized by the French Ministry of Research. The founding team immediately focussed on the detailed project planning to move to make sure that we would be able to reach a decisive milestone: selecting our lead. By experience, we knew that even at that early stage, decisions that we were making, especially in terms of product profile, or the way we were planning to conduct our in vitro or in vivo experiments, could impact the regulatory path down the line. We also had many questions about various technologies and the selection of our partners. In short, we needed a stepped back experienced look at our plan that could take into account the potential impact of our decisions on the later development steps. Knowing Olivier Favre-Bulle and 3Biotech by reputation, their names immediately came to mind when looking for such a support.
How has 3Biotech's approach been innovative and contributed to your success?
The first time we shared our project and development plan with Olivier, he immediately raised key practical questions and challenged lab experiment protocols or technologies we were planning to use. His capacity to quickly understand experimental protocols and put expected outcomes in perspective with practical CMC and/or clinical needs has been instrumental in shaping our plan the best possible way. Challenging various technologies that we have been using has helped us better understand their limitations and the way to use them best. Finally, his knowledge of the ecosystem was a great help to know and select the proven best partners. He also provided us with a detailed plan and budget for our future steps in CMC.
What has been the outcome of this collaboration?
Epynext Therapeutics just celebrated its first birthday in January and we’ve reached our development milestones as planned and are currently finalizing our lead selection. We’ve learned a lot while shaping a selection methodology which we plan to follow for future targets that we may identify. Olivier and 3Biotech have been of great help and support and we definitely see 3Biotech as a key partner for the future development of our drug candidate.