Maxion Therapeutics receives £2m Innovate UK funding for KnotBody platform

Maxion Therapeutics has been awarded a prestigious £2million grant from Innovate UK as part of the innovation agency’s Biomedical Catalyst 2022 Round 2: Industry-led R&D funding competition.

Based at the Babraham Institute, Maxion is driven by CEO and co-founder Dr John McCafferty, previously co-founder of Cambridge Antibody Technology and IONTAS, a co-inventor of phage display technology for which Sir Greg Winter (University of Cambridge, CAT) won the Nobel Prize; and CSO and co-founder Dr Aneesh Karatt Vellatt - also co-founder of IONTAS - who co-invented KnotBody technology.

Maxion’s patented KnotBody technology combines the power of millions of years of cysteine-rich miniprotein (‘Knottin’) evolution with cutting-edge phage and mammalian display technologies to address key challenges in ion channel and GPCR drug discovery.

The goal is to develop novel biologic medicines for ion channels and GPCRs - critical cell surface proteins involved in a wide range of untreated or poorly-treated diseases, including autoimmune conditions and chronic pain. These medicines are required because antibody-based therapies have transformed the way chronic conditions like autoimmune disorders are treated, but a significant proportion of patients do not respond well to treatment. Currently, 4 per cent of the world’s population, or around 300 million people, are thought to be suffering from over 80 different autoimmune conditions. In the UK alone, 4 million people live with an autoimmune condition, with the incidence increasing by 3-9 per cent annually.

Several ion channels are implicated in the pathogenesis of autoimmune disorders, but these critical cell surface proteins are seen as a complex target class for antibodies, with no antibody-based drugs targeting ion channels currently approved or in clinical development. Maxion has identified that nature has provided the answer in the form of ‘miniproteins’ (knottins) that block ion channels. When knottins are fused onto the surface of antibodies, the resulting ‘KnotBodies’ combine the ion channel-blocking activity of knottins with the excellent drug properties of antibodies, including long half-life in the body and the ability to further engineer their properties. This innovative molecular fusion approach serves as the foundation for Maxion’s patented KnotBody platform technology.

The company’s early R&D efforts have yielded KnotBodies to ion channel targets involved in autoimmune disorders, which will be further developed as selective and long-acting first-in-class and best-in-class therapeutics using Innovate UK funding.

The new funding follows Maxion’s announcement in February 2023 that it had completed a £13m Series A financing, led by LifeArc Ventures, including Monograph Capital and BGF as equal participants.

Dr McCafferty, CEO and co-founder, said: “We are delighted to receive this substantial award from Innovate UK, to support the use of our KnotBody technology to develop therapeutics against this important but challenging class of targets. Our ultimate goal is to significantly improve the quality of life of patients by preventing and treating devastating autoimmune conditions, through the expansion and optimisation of our innovative pipeline of candidate therapeutics.”

Dr Karatt Vellatt, CSO and co-founder, said: “KnotBody technology overcomes many of the challenges presented by conventional antibody development techniques, with an ability to specifically target ion channels linked to chronic autoimmune diseases. We are excited by the potential therapeutic candidates in our pipeline, and this new funding from Innovate UK will allow us to expedite their development and progress the most promising drug candidate towards clinical trials.”