Navigo Proteins, a protein engineering biotech company generating scaffold protein-based affinity ligands, and MDimune, a South Korea based biotech company developing an innovative drug delivery platform based on exosome-like, nanosized cell-derived vesicles (CDVs), have announced a technology collaboration to achieve tissue-targeting of extracellular vesicles (EVs).

The ongoing research combines Navigo’s target-binding Affilin® molecules with MDimune’s CDV technology, to enable Affilin®-mediated delivery of CDVs specifically to solid tumour targets.

For the current collaboration, Navigo Proteins will contribute its existing solid tumour-specific Affilin® molecules to ‘decorate’ the surface of the exosome-like CDVs from MDimune’s BioDrone® technology, thereby pioneering next-generation, targeted extracellular vesicle-based therapeutics.

Dr Ulrich Haupts, Chief Scientific Officer, Navigo Proteins commented: “We are looking forward to combining our selectivity-conferring Affilin® molecules with MDimune’s extracellular vesicles manufacturing platform, since this opens up an exciting new application for our scaffold protein-based Affilin® molecules in the upcoming field of exosome-based therapeutics. The modular and highly engineer-able Affilin® technology can be a very attractive solution for the precise, targeted delivery of exosome-like vesicles, carrying different payloads to different target tissues.”

“Recently, we have invested significant efforts and resources to expedite effective steering of our vesicles, CDVs, to tumours or other resistant tissues. The current collaboration with Navigo Proteins is one of them highlighting our recent focus. Navigo Protein’s demonstrated expertise in generating highly tissue-specific ligands will be key to enable this goal and ultimately build a foundation for our BioDrone® platform technology,” said Dr Seung Wook Oh, Chief Scientific Officer, MDimune.