Exploration of linker and bioisostere technology and application to ADCs

As a member of the TACT (Targeted Anti-Cancer Therapies) consortium, SpiroChem was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant.

This non-dilutive R&D financing from the European Union as part of the Innovative Training Networks (ITN) brings together universities, research institutes and other sectors from across the world to train researchers to doctorate level and drive scientific excellence and innovation. By recruiting and hosting PhD students, institutions from the consortium will equip them with transferable, future career-enhancing skills to create the next generation of experts in Europe.

Together with SpiroChem and other members of the consortium, our Junior Research Associate Loïc Herter, will be working on the development of new Antibody-Drug Conjugates (ADCs), a fast-growing class of oncology therapeutics. Spirochem will oversee the development and design of new drug payloads (such as toxins new drugs), and bioisosteres of existing cytotoxics (to enhance their activity) or combination of warheads with distinct mechanisms of action. The work on payloads will be associated to linker design and vectorization. Innovation in this area is of tremendous importance in order to expand Protein-Drug Conjugates’ therapeutic windows and to fight the poor diversity in ADC-compatible drugs: only three families of cytotoxics are used in more than 70% of ADCs currently in clinical trials, which can favor drug resistance issues in cancer cells.