Amgen and Takeda join to form five-strong drug delivery partnership
Feldan Therapeutics is part of the ‘Quantum Leap’ project that is organised by CQDM, a Canadian biopharma research consortium, which has organised for the biotech to be backed by the five major pharma players.
Amgen and Takeda are the latest to contribute to the research being carried out by Feldan, a preclinical biotech company that is developing ‘Feldan Shuttle’ technology for the direct delivery of proteins inside cells.
The technology allows the delivery of active nucleases, transcription factors, antibodies and peptides to therapeutic target areas – potentially overcoming delivery obstacles, such as not generating any unwanted alterations of the host cell and the degradation of the delivery ‘shuttle’ in four hours post-delivery.
Amgen and Takeda will both provide funding for the project, with a total of $1.2m (€1.07m) raised to progress Feldan’s work. In addition, the five pharma partners will be able to nominate a senior scientist to mentor the research team.
Philip Tagari, Amgen's VP of therapeutic discovery, said, "Amgen's biotechnology products originating from our Canadian laboratories could benefit significantly from Feldan's novel drug delivery technologies, which is an example of the important innovation coming from Quebec's Life Sciences sector."
For Takeda’s part in the project, Gamze Yüceland, GM of Takeda Canada, said the company is one of the fastest-growing in the country, as well as highlighting the importance of engaging with public-private that “strengthen the Quebec life sciences sector [and] hold the promise to bring better health to patients.”
CQDM is the consortium that has brought the various partners together to ‘bridge’ the funding gap between academia and the private sector to bring through early-stage research.
In total, the organisation has raised $68m in funding from 13 pharmaceutical companies for various projects across its portfolio, further including Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Novartis, amongst others.
