Solvanix Launched with Start-up Investment from the MRCF

Solvanix Pty Ltd was launched with start-up financing from Australia’s Medical Research Commercialization Fund (MRCF).

Solvanix’ proprietary StAbilize™ technology works by maximizing colloidal stability and by reducing aggregation of monoclonal antibody products. The StAbilize™ process optimizes amino acids at specific locations within the antibody complementarity determining regions (CDRs).

The result is a fully human antibody with drastically improved stability and a reduced propensity to aggregate that still retains all the properties necessary for therapeutic use.

Solvanix will work with the biotech and pharma industries developing therapeutic antibodies incorporating the StAbilize™ technology. Non-exclusive licenses are available for the StAbilize™ technology.

The MRCF, managed by Brandon Capital Partners, has committed AU$2 million to fund Solvanix and establish a service business that allows the rapid incorporation of the StAbilize™ technology into human antibody candidates at all stages of development and commercialization. The company will be based at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Australia.

Commenting on the new company, Chris Smith, Non-executive Director of Solvanix and Investment Manager at Brandon Capital Partners, said “Solvanix is a great example of the pioneering technologies that the MRCF is set up to commercialize. This is the only broadly applicable technology proven to reduce antibody aggregation. StAbilize™ has a broad range of benefits such that it should be a game-changing addition to the global antibody therapeutics industry.”

Associate Professor Daniel Christ, founder and CSO of Solvanix, Conjoint Associate Professor in the Faculty of Medicine, UNSW Australia and Head of the Antibody Therapeutics Laboratory at the Garvan Institute in Sydney, added: “A critical problem in the development and manufacture of therapeutic antibodies is their tendency to aggregate under certain conditions. This leads to sub optimal candidates being developed, increases the costs for what are already expensive biopharmaceuticals and limits the utility for certain applications. With the StAbilize™ technology such instability and aggregation can be simply and cost-effectively eliminated and optimal antibodies developed.”