We have been actively exploring novel targets identification and has developed a strong team of R&D talents with a mix of resources that instill an innovative culture at all levels. Led by the Chief Executive Officer of the Company, who also undertakes the function of the Chief Scientific Officer, the research team has established five strategic in-house drug identification platforms, namely, the “B-cell Therapeutic Platform”, “Alarmins-pathway Therapeutic Platform”, “Selective-T Cell Therapeutic Platform” and “Neurological Disease Platform” and “Antibody Framework-Patching Humanisation Platform” that allow the Company to continuously identify novel drug targets and develop new antibody candidates, broadening and enriching our product pipelines for other autoimmune diseases with unmet medical needs. SM18, SM32 and SM20/SM22 are all candidates derived from the above platforms.
We are armed with several innovative technological and therapeutic platforms, allowing us to come up with novel antibody candidates that are specific for novel targets, achieving therapeutic effects via novel mechanisms of actions.
The Company was established with an initial focus on developing therapeutics that target B cells. As more and more data accumulated and the functions of these B cell antigens/targets and the roles of B cells played in the immune system were better understood, their potentials for treating autoimmune diseases had become prominent — forming our bases for “B cell therapy approach”. There are possibilities of use in combination of our different products developed on our B cell therapeutic platform in the future. These antigens and targets include:
- CD22 — our SM03 (Suciraslimab) and SM06, anti-CD22 antibody, were developed under our B-cell therapeutic platform.
- CD20 — our SM09, a framework-patched version of a novel anti-CD20 antibody, was developed under our B-cell therapeutic platform.
- BTK — our SN1011, a third generation covalent reversible BTK inhibitor, was developed to maximise the therapeutic benefits of B cell therapy.
The immune system is an interplay between different cell lineages and factors; but the majority of which include B cell, T cell and cytokines. Albeit our good coverage on B cell specific targets, there are other areas we need to fill in order to address other immune related ailments. While most cytokines are well studied, and products against which have been approved, there emerges a new class of factors known as alarmins that are upstream of the immune pathway. These alarmins play crucial roles in autoimmune diseases involving the respiratory tract and dermatological tissues such as asthma, AD, IPF, etc.
IL-25 is one of the three alarmins that targets a particular receptor called IL-17RB. Our SM17 is a humanised, IgG4-k monoclonal antibody targeting IL-25, developed under our alarmins-pathway therapeutic platform.
Our pipeline covers B cell and Alarmins/cytokines, and there exists a major missing piece in the immunotherapy portfolio — T cells. The T-cell associated receptor is not well researched in the biopharma area as its function is promiscuous. We have developed a platform to isolate antibodies that have selective binding to the receptor, resulting in the identification of a battery of antibodies with differentiated functionality covering a wide range of immunological diseases.
In 2019, there was a paper published in the journal Nature that demonstrated that anti-CD22 antibody would have therapeutic effects on degenerative neurological disease in a murine model. We researched the possibility of using SM03 (Suciraslimab) for treating mild cognitive impairment (MCI) due to Alzheimer’s disease and Alzheimer’s disease and found that CD22 is significantly expressed in microglia and other neurological cells.
The discovery that anti-CD22 antibody can induce the internalisation of Aβ protein has led to the development of bispecific antibodies that target anti-inflammatory cell surface antigens and Aβ protein for treating Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological diseases. Product candidates are descendants of the SM03 (Suciraslimab)/SM06 lineage.
Most antibodies are produced in a murine background, and antibody humanisation (a genetic engineering approach) is needed to convert the murine sequence into human sequence without affecting the affinity and specificity of the original antibody (parent antibody). We employ a novel approach known as “Framework-patching” to introduce “human-ness” in a functional perspective (functional humanisation). Our SM06 and SM09 antibodies were humanised using this novel technology unique to the Company.
