Oxford BioTherapeutics Designates Second Bispecific Antibody Program Leveraging WuXi Biologics’ WuXiBody® Platform

OXFORD, United Kingdom and SAN JOSE, Calif. and SHANGHAI, China, Jan. 19, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- WuXi Biologics (“WuXi Bio”) (2269.HK), a global company with leading open-access biologics technology platforms, and Oxford BioTherapeutics Ltd. (“OBT”), a clinical stage oncology company with a pipeline of immuno-oncology and antibody-drug conjugate based therapies, today announced that OBT has selected a second bispecific program that will combine an anti-PD-L1 antibody with OBT’s immuno-oncology (IO) candidate, OX003.

OBT will research and develop OX003/PD-L1, which employs WuXi Biologics’ proprietary bispecific antibody platform WuXiBody®. “We are pleased to extend our IO partnership with WuXi Biologics, by combining a second bispecific antibody from WuXi Biologics’ proprietary bispecific platform with one of our leading clinical IO assets, OX003,” said Dr. Christian Rohlff, CEO of Oxford BioTherapeutics. “This designation represents the second advancement of our immunooncology partnership with WuXi Biologics, in which we will research, develop and commercialize five novel bispecific antibodies for the treatment of several cancer types. Combining the potent immune stimulatory activity of OX003 with the ability to block PDL1 in a single agent, OX003/PD-L1 has the potential to achieve broad utility across many solid and liquid tumor types while simultaneously improving the risk/benefit ratio, reducing costs and maximizing future commercial potential. This product is the second molecule with WuXiBody® in our partnership, following the design of OX001/PD-L1, which is now entering pre-clinical development.”

“We are glad that significant progress has been made from our strategic partnership with OBT, one of the earlier adopters of our proprietary WuXiBody® platform,” said Dr. Chris Chen, CEO of WuXi Biologics. “Globally the first WuXiBody® based bispecific is in a phase I clinical trial. Broad applications of this innovative non-specific platform further validate our beliefs that this platform addresses most technical limitations of current bispecific technologies and has the potential to tremendously expedite bispecific development and reduce the cost of making these biologics. WuXi Biologics will continue to invest in developing next-generation technologies to transform biologics discovery, development and manufacturing.”