Complix' Alphabody™ Protein Therapeutics Demonstrate Activity against both Undruggable Extracellular and Intracellular Disease Targets

HASSELT, Belgium, April 26, 2012 /PRNewswire/ --

Alphabodies cross over the boundaries between biologics and small chemical drugs

Complix NV, a biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of Alphabodies, a unique class of protein therapeutics that are active against both extracellular and intracellular disease targets, announces that it will provide an update on new developments with its Alphabody™ platform at the Biologics Partnering Forum in Boston, MA on 29 April 2012.

Dr Mark Vaeck, CEO of Complix, will highlight in his presentation the potential of the Company's Alphabody platform to transform protein therapeutics. Alphabodies are small single chain alpha-helical proteins that are designed by computer modeling, but are inspired by naturally existing protein structures. Alphabodies can address a diverse range of traditionally undruggable disease targets and combine beneficial properties of biologics and small chemical drugs, such as high specificity and affinity for large protein surfaces, efficient intracellular penetration and excellent stability in human serum.  

In the past few months, Complix has generated exciting new data with Alphabodies against intracellular oncology targets. These results show that Alphabodies can be designed to efficiently enter human cells and bind to targets of interest, allowing them to modulate intracellular protein-to-protein interactions and induce apoptosis in cancer cells. Complix expects to report further break-through data from this important program over the course of 2012.

In parallel with its work looking at intracellular cancer targets, Complix continues to progress its lead drug candidate, CMPX-1023. This novel therapeutic Alphabody binds with high affinity and selectivity to a key functional epitope of an important autoimmune disease target. In preclinical disease models CMPX-1023 has demonstrated impressive potency and selectivity, suggesting it has the potential to become a valuable therapeutic for the treatment of autoimmune disorders, with a superior safety profile compared with currently marketed drugs. Complix expects to file an IND/CTA application for CMPX-1023 in the first half of 2013.

Dr Vaeck commented: "The challenge today is not identifying new disease targets but generating novel therapeutics that act on validated targets not addressable by current drug formats. With our novel Alphabody protein therapeutics, we believe we are well on our way to solving this problem. Our work to-date has shown that Alphabodies, which combine important characteristics from both biologics and small chemical drugs, are able to address both extracellular and intracellular targets of interest. With our powerful Alphabody discovery engine already in place we are confident that Complix will become a leading player in the emerging field of cross-over therapeutics."

The Alphabody discovery platform applies rational design to generate optimized lead compounds with unrivalled binding affinity to preselected epitopes of functionally important disease targets. Often such crucial target epitopes are difficult or impossible to address with conventional antibody technology or other drug screening platforms.

About Complix

Complix discovers and develops Alphabodies, a novel and proprietary class of biopharmaceuticals that delivers significant advantages over current protein therapeutic approaches.  Alphabodies' most important advantage is their ability to address currently undruggable extracellular and in particular, intracellular targets.  

Alphabodies' alpha-helical coiled coil structure makes them ideal protein scaffolds for therapeutic applications as they combine the specificity of antibodies with small molecule-like stability, allowing them to be formulated for non-injectable routes of administration. Alphabodies' unique design means that Complix has complete freedom to operate. The Company has already established a strong intellectual property position for its Alphabody platform through the filing of several broad patent applications.

Complix´s current R&D focus is on the development of novel Alphabody-based therapies for inflammation/autoimmunity, viral diseases, and cancer.

Complix raised EUR 7 million through a Series A equity financing round in 2010, with Vesalius Biocapital, LRM and Crédit Agricole Private Equity as the main investors.

Complix is headquartered in Hasselt (Belgium) in the Life Sciences incubator BioVille, and has research facilities in Ghent (Belgium) and in Luxembourg. The Company has a fully owned subsidiary in Luxembourg and a strategic alliance with the public research institute CRP-Santé. For further information, please visit http://www.complix.com.

Contacts
Complix NV
Dr. Mark Vaeck, CEO
+32-9-261-69-40
mark.vaeck@complix.com