Ablynx to receive €1.5m in grants

Belgian biopharmaceutical company and Nanobody specialist, Ablynx, has announced it is to receive a total of €1.5m in grants.

The company, currently working with Boehringer Ingelheim in the development of Nanobodies for Alzheimer's disease, is to be awarded a grant worth €1.1m by the Flemish agency for Innovation by Science and Technology (IWT) as well as a second grant worth €0.4m from the Portuguese government, as part of a consortium.

Ablynx said the extra funds from IWT will speed up the development of its pre-clinical development programme for ALX-0171 – a potential treatment for respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections.

ALX-0171 is a Nanobody to be administered through the lungs to both prevent and treat the infection. It is Ablynx's first Nanobody pre-clinical development candidate to be delivered through a route other than injection.

The company said the grant from the Portuguese government will go towards exploring routes of delivery for Nanobodies into the central nervous system (CNS), as well as developing Nanobodies against therapeutically relevant CNS targets.

Edwin Moses, CEO and chairman of Ablynx, said: "We are delighted with IWT's continued support of Ablynx's Nanobody platform as well as with this second grant from the Portuguese government which will allow us to further explore and develop Nanobody-based therapies for CNS diseases where the unmet medical need is very high."