Biotecnol

= Biotecnol SA =

General Information
toc Andrew Kelly, PhD - Chief Scientific Officer José Luis Moreira, PhD - Chief Financil Officer Phillip Cunnah, PhD - Senior Director: Development & Manufacturing Bernard Brigonnet - Chief Business Officer Didier Landais - Chief Development Officer Nico Mertens, PhD - Director of Antibody Engineering Miroslav Ravic, PhD - Clinical Advisor || Corporate Investors: Pharmis, LDA and Iberfar SA INOV Capital - Sociedade de Capital de Risco Taguspark, SA Grupo José de Mello, SGPS, SA Luso American Foundation - FLAD ||
 * ~ Company Name || Biotecnol SA ||
 * ~ Year founded || 1996 ||
 * ~ Headquarters || Lagoas Park - Oeiras, Portugal ||
 * ~ Subsidiaries || Biotecnol Pharmaceuticals Inc - USA, Durham, North Carolina ||
 * ~ Management Team || Pedro de Noronha Pissara, PhD - Chief Executive Officer
 * ~ Shareholders || Company founders, private investors and employees
 * ~ Income || No financial data available ||
 * ~ website || [] ||

Biotecnol SA is a Portuguese biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery, engineering and development of novel multifunctional antibody molecules directed to key therapeutic targets. The company has its headquarters in Lagoas Park, Oeiras, where it has its own 800m² modern facilities designed specifically for the development of biological products. Biotecnol's activities can be divided in five major departments:


 * Molecular Biology;
 * Fermentation;
 * Downstream Processing;
 * Bioassays;
 * Analytics;

Apart from its headquarters in Portugal, Biotecnol also has a subsidiary, Biotecnol Pharmaceuticals Inc, in Durham, North Carolina USA,that operates adjacent to the Research Triangle Park. Here, the regulatory pre-clinical and clinical development of the antibody products pipeline is carried out. Meanwhile, all process development and manufacturing activities are done in Portugal.

//All of the above general information can be seen in depth at// [|//http://www.biotecnol.com///] //Lagoas Park image taken from// //www.logismarket.pt.//

History

 * Biotecnol's time line : **
 * **Late 1996 -** This is the year the company was founded. Biotecnol started as a consultancy company;
 * **1997-1999** - In the beginning the company had its laboratories at the Center for Biological and Chemical Engineering (CEQB) at the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). Its head offices were at Taguspark;
 * **2000** - Some investment enabled the company to begin activities independently from CEQB. This investment allowed Biotecnol to invest in its own technology, network, clients, people and also to put its structure into place. Thereby, Biotecnol developed into the first company in Portugal whose focus was the research & development of pharmaceutical biotechnology;
 * **2002** - The company makes the transition from a //technology development company// to a //product development company//, due to additional financing;
 * **2004** - Biotecnol started the development of a pipeline of products in the oncology field and obtained granted patents on antibody engineering technology;
 * **2006** - Biotecnol moved to its new facilities and offices at Lagoas Park;
 * **2008** - The company started its activity abroad, more specifically in the United States of America. Biotecnol opened a subsidiary called Biotecnol Pharmaceutical Inc, in Durham, NC;
 * **Onwards** - The company plans to expand its product development activities from the USA base;

** Technology/R&D **
Biotecnol believes that technology adds value to the company as it supports the development of the company's own product candidates. Biotecnol has various types of antibody formats in development against various cancer targets in a diverse pipeline of antibody products. Biotecnol developed the Tribody™ technology in order to provide a multifunctional recombinant antibody platform which had a longer serum half life than bi-specific antibodies, but which had similar tissue penetration. The following image was taken from the brochure that corresponds to the second reference.
 * Technology

Biotecnol set up R&D collaborations in order to develop both products and technology so they could extend their expertise. Biotecnol makes R&D with external sources to understand and validate biological mechanisms of action, product discovery, data gathering for IND submission and supporting pre-clinical activities. Nowadays, Biotecnol collaborates with VIB, Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology, Belgium, and with CIPERB, University of Naples, Italy. With the VIB collaboration both have developed FastScreen® which is a technological concept that allows the analysis of expression of a given gene in the shortest possible time span. With CIPERB, the collaboration aims on the development of anti-HER2 immunoagents as well as on the study of their respective mechanisms of action and the biology of the EGFR receptor.
 * Research & Development

//Tribody Technology image taken from www.biotecnol.com.//

** Products **
Biotecnol applies its antibody technologies, product development and manufacturing experience to generate, support and potentially license out human antibody products.The company is focused on Oncology and their main products are: ** HSP90 is a molecular chaperone that facilitates protein folding in both tumor and normal cells. It has been shown to be over expressed in a wide variety of cancer and virally-transformed cells. It is essential to cell survival and plays a role in regulating mitogenesis and cell-cycle progression. Targeting the overexpression of intracellular Hsp90 in cancer is already possible with some compounds who are not effective for the extracellular Hsp90. Yet, it has been shown that the inhibition of extracellular Hsp90 by antibodies reduces the migration rate of cancer cells in vitro; It is known, through intensive studies, that liver failure can lead to the development of cancer.Treatment with recombinant CT-1 is able to prevent Fas-induced apoptosis in various models of acute liver failure and it can also reduce liver damage when given up to 3 hours after Fas-ligation. This suggests that CT-1 can block apoptotic process when administered early after injury which increases its therapeutic potential; PTHrP has been identified as an essential survival factor for human renal cell carcinoma. The blockade of PTHrp with antibodies induces tumor regression by inducing cell apoptosis;
 * **anti-HER2/CAB051**
 * CAB051 is an antibody that could be an alternative to the existing anti-HER2 antibodies. They may be useful in combination with upstream-downstream HER2 pathways effectors and may be administered in patients that present cardiotoxicity symptoms during treatment with other HER2 antibodies and/or anthracyclines;
 * **anti-HSP90**
 * **Cardiotrophin I**
 * **anti-PTHrP**

Simão Castro, nº57841, MEBiol

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