Dipl.Ing. Christof Langer (CEO, co-founder)
Dr.Geert Mudde (CSO, co-founder)

Drug development / Drug delivery, Immunology / Allergology, Industrial processing, Oncology, Pharmaceuticals, Process technology, Vaccines

S-TARget develops unique vaccines against e.g. allergic diseases based on a novel technologyplatform in a stronlgy growing market.

Introduction: S-TARget therapeutics is a new biotech company that aims to develop, produce and market recombinant vaccine-like, biological drugs against allergic and in a later stage against oncological diseases. Both therapeutic areas are faced with a widely unmet medical need. The worldwide treatment with currently available drugs in the area of allergy alone shows revenues of roughly 3 billion USD / year. The field of oncology is even bigger than that. S-TARget’s first product SG100X will be a vaccine against house dust mite (HDM) induced allergic asthma. In contrast to currently available therapies - which only treat the symptoms of allergic reactions – SG100X is designed to cure and prevent allergic diseases. Moreover, S-TARget therapeutics’ technology platform, with its broad medical scope of application, will allow treatment with much lower physical burden on part of the patients and in addition treatment will be cheaper for the health care system. Finally, a preliminary freedom-to-operate analysis (FTA) from 2007 indicates that SG100X will most likely not infringe on existing patents.
The team: S-TARget therapeutics was founded by two professionals with strong background in the Pharma industry:
Dr. Geert Mudde, immunologist, who has spent >20 years in Senior Manager positions, mainly in R&D within Pharma and Biotech industry, authored >80 scientific publications and is (co-)inventor of > 19 intl. patents and
DI. Christof Langer, biotechnologist, who spent >13 years in intl. Senior Pharma Management with strong background in operations as well as in consulting.
The founders are strongly supported by a team of top class professionals in the field of IP management, legal and tax matters, finance, as well as by senior scientific advisors from Universities in Europe like BOKU, Vienna and University Utrecht, Radbout University Nijmegen.

Principle: The active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) will comprise of 2 modules; an antigen specific module and a proprietary generic module, both modules are linked together through a high affinity binding site. The generic part, Module 1 - which represents the “warhead” of the drug - binds to plasmacytoid Dendritic Cells (pDC’s) through specific interaction with FcγRII (CD32) and triggers the pDC’s to produce large amounts of Th1 inducing cytokines, through interaction with the Toll Like Receptor 9 (TLR9). Module 1 also contains a high affinity binding side that connects with a specifically designed tag in the antigen specific module (module 2). Module 2 is the immunogen and contains the actual immunization sequences or antigenic peptides (AgP).
The concept is based on the potential of pDC’s to produce a cocktail of cytokines that direct allergen specific T helper cells to become so called Th1 cells. Upon future natural contact with these allergens, the Th1 cells will induce “healthy” immune responses, instead of the genetically pre-programmed allergic immune responses induced by Th2 cells of the allergic patients. In the case of SG100X the allergen of choice is HDM.
Before application of the drug by the physician, modules 1 and 2 are mixed together to obtain 1 complexed molecule, which forms the final drug. With this basic principle a number of different antigen-specific products can be easily formulated, depending on the patient’s need.
A more detailed description can be found in the patent application EP 06110672.0; applicants and inventors: G Mudde., G. Himmler; filed May 31, 2006.

Roadbook: During phase 1, S-TARget therapeutics will focus on allergic diseases and produce a prototype vaccine (SG100X) for treatment and prevention of HDM induced allergic asthma. The prototype will be used to obtain proof of concept in relevant animal models. This process will take 1.5 – 2 years.
In phase 2, SG100X will be further optimized, after which manufacturing of clinical material needed for the first clinical trial (phase 1a), can be started. In this phase the company should be financed by investors and/or partnering pharmaceutical companies. It is anticipated that it will take ~ 3-4 years from the start of the project to the end of the first clinical phase 1a study.