Protein snippets in the fight against cancer
Adlershof company 3B Pharmaceuticals develops peptide agents for the treatment of cancer and haemophilia
Jan Michel travels a lot. Just recently, the commercial manager of 3B Pharmaceuticals (3BP) was again attending a pharmaceuticals trade fair in Barcelona. During tightly organized half hour meetings he presented his company’s highly specialized portfolio to pharmaceutical companies. “It’s a little like speed dating”, explained Michel, who had already specialised in biotechnology and the health sector as a consultant for CapGemini and Deutsche Bank. Emerging from the “purchase” of a research team at the Jerini pharmaceuticals company in 2009, the peptide specialist 3BP places the acquisition of new customers close to the top of its agenda. For nearly three years the company has had its home in Adlershof.
The company is doing good business. Its twenty employees are discovering, researching and optimizing peptides for the fight against e.g. cancer. Together with the US Baxter Group, a med-tech and pharmaceutical supplier, they have been working successfully for some years now on agents for the treatment of haemophilia. Peptides are small, extremely versatile and highly stable molecules composed of amino acids. “The technology can actually be applied irrespectively of indications.
In principle, it can be used for any disease when the peptide can reach and become active at its target in the body,” explained Michel. In the treatment of cancer, for instance, the peptide works like a shuttle that is filled with radioactive isotopes and docks precisely on the tumour. There it discharges its cargo, and the radioactivity makes the tumour visible for diagnostic purposes or destroys it as part of therapy.
In its own research project, 3BP is currently working on an agent for the treatment of pancreatic cancer. Initial clinical studies on humans are being scheduled before the end of the year. These high tech drugs are to arouse the interest of a growing number of pharmaceutical firms that do their shopping at biotechnology companies. 3BP is looking forward to a lucrative income from licence fees and commissions: “We can cover the whole range, from the discovery of a substance, to its research, to the initial clinical study,” replied Michel when asked to describe his business model. “Then a partner with plenty of capital must take over.”
By Claudia Wessling for Adlershof Special