Covagen
Covagen is developing next generation protein drugs for the treatment of diseases by using its Fynomer technology. This technology has been developed at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences at ETH Zurich (Switzerland). Covagen's innovative platform comprises a novel single domain protein scaffold which - in analogy to antibodies - can be engineered to yield high affinity binding proteins (Fynomers) that can be used for therapeutic applications.
Compared to antibodies, Fynomers have several advantages:
- They can be produced in bacteria with high yields.
- Fynomers are about ten times smaller than antibodies. Therefore, they can potentially reach targets which are inaccessible using antibody technologies currently available.
- Several Fynomers with different binding specificities can be combined in one molecule. This may allow for new treatment modalities that are challenging or impossible to be exploited with antibodies.
Covagen has filed patent applications to protect its drug development platform, thus allowing Covagen to become active in a new field of intellectual property, which is a significant advantage compared with the antibody field that has been widely claimed already.
Antibody structure Covagen's Fynomer
The picture above illustrates the differences in size and complexity between a full IgG antibody (left) and Covagen's Fynomers derived from the single domain scaffold Fyn SH3 (right). The antibody molecule is a large and complex structure which usually has to be expressed in mammmalian cell culture systems, whereas Fynomers can be cheaply produced in bacteria with high yields.