Avacta’s proprietary Affimer^® technology is a novel class of biological, based on the naturally occurring human protein Stefin A, which enables the development of next-generation biotherapeutics.

Affimer^® proteins are smaller than antibodies meaning that they potentially have better tissue penetration advantages in solid tumours. This, combined with exquisite specificity, strong stability and high expression, confers excellent drug-like properties to Affimer^® molecules.

The PK/PD of therapeutic Affimer^® molecules can be tuned using Affimer XT^®, a serum albumin-binding Affimer^® with half-life extension properties, or using Affimer-Fc fusions. Affimer^® molecules can also be genetically fused to each other to form multi-specific therapies, or to other proteins, such as the C-terminus of an antibody, to generate bispecific biobetter formats.

The Affimer^® platform at a glance

Key advantages

• Affimer^® proteins can be made to be exquisitely specific.
• Affimer^® proteins can be generated to bind to targets that have proven very difficult for antibodies.
• Affimer^® proteins can be linked to create multi-specific therapeutics that address more than one target.
• Affimer^® proteins have excellent properties for drug development
  • They can quickly be generated to bind to a target of interest
  • They have a tuneable serum half-life
  • They are relatively cheap to manufacture
  • They are robust, stable and highly soluble
  • They have no post-translational modifications
  • The core Affimer^® protein is human and therefore the risk of immunogenicity is lowered