Arsanis to develop monoclonal antibody therapeutics against nosocomial infections

Sep 11 2012

Arsanis Biosciences GmbH, an early stage biotechnology company developing anti-infective human monoclonal antibodies, today announced the award of two major grants for the development of monoclonal antibody therapeutics against nosocomial infections. Both grant supports involve the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (österr. Forschungsförderungs GmbH or "FFG"), the leading public funding agency for applied research in Austria.    

An EUR 1.54 million FFG support, is given for the 2^nd year of a 4-year "Basisprogramm" project with a total budget of EUR 12.5 million (with up to 70% funding). A EUROSTARS grant with EUR 4.55 million - mainly funded by national agencies - is awarded to the KLEBSICURE consortium with Arsanis as consortium leader, and GATC GmbH (Constance, Germany), the Max Planck Institute for Infectious Biology (Berlin, Germany) and the Ludwik Hirszfeld Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy (Wroclaw, Poland) as consortium members.

"Arsanis is building a broad portfolio of anti-infective antibodies against bacterial infections," commented Eszter Nagy, MD, PhD, Co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Arsanis. "The continued support from FFG's Basisprogramm is based on the progress of our antibody discovery efforts towards companion diagnostics and monoclonal antibody based therapeutics against severe infections caused by Staphylococcus aureus and multi-drug resistant Escherichia coli. It will significantly contribute to the timely delivery in the pre-clinical testing of our product candidates and to initiate GMP manufacturing. The EUROSTARS grant and the excellent consortium partners will accelerate the speed of discovery of monoclonal antibody based products targeting multi-drug resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae."

"Arsanis has assembled a consortium of excellent partners to target an important emerging pathogen," said Tillman Gerngross, Ph.D. Co-Founder and Chairman of Arsanis, Inc. "Over the past 18 months Eszter and her team have built an impressive portfolio of programs in the infectious disease space and the most recent grant support further validates our approach."

"These grants will help to reinforce Vienna as an attractive venue for international biotech investors," said Errik Anderson, Arsanis Co-founder. Arsanis received funding in 2010 by a syndicate of three US-based venture capitalists; Orbimed Advisors (New York, NY), Polaris Venture Partners (Waltham, MA), and SV Life Sciences (Boston, MA).

Source: Arsanis