PrDx - Advanced Software for Predicting the Immune Response During Drug Development - ImmuniPrDx

Programme(s)
H2020-EU.3. - PRIORITY 'Societal challenges
H2020-EU.2.3. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs
H2020-EU.2.1. - INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Leadership in enabling and industrial technologies

Topic(s) EIC-SMEInst-2018-2020 - SME instrument

Call for proposal H2020-SMEInst-2018-2020-1

Funding Scheme SME-1 - SME instrument phase 1

Grant agreement ID: 867120

Objective
>90% of drug and vaccine candidates fail during drug development, resulting in an average of €35M lost per drug for the pharma companies, and a slow and expensive drug development process. A major reason for failure is unwanted/lack of immune response of the drug/vaccine candidate. Thus, immunogenicity prediction tools, Epitope Prediction Software (EIPS) and assays, are important for cost-effective and safe drug development. However, available EIPS are over-predictive and limited: using the current gold standard EIPS netMHC, <10% of the predicted immunogenic epitopes induce an immune response. Immunitrack has developed a next generation EIPS - PrDx - that with high accuracy and no false positives far exceeds the performance of netMHC. PrDx, to be applied alone or in combination with our successfully commercialized immunogenicity assays, is a strong tool for streamlining drug and vaccine development, meeting user needs for multiple applications: i) identify immunogenic epitopes to be included in a vaccine; ii) identify unwanted immunogenic properties of a newly developed drug, and iii) guide treatment by assessing patient immune response. For commercialisation, PrDx must be shaped into a customer friendly format and meet regulatory demands; the goal of the Innovation project is to conduct activities related to certifications and requirements, and user tests for demonstration and validation, critical for PrDx awareness and knowledge of user benefits. Immunitrack will sell PrDx reports for drug/vaccine candidate immunogenicity screening and complementing immunogenicity assays, through direct and indirect sales with a predicted accumulated turnover of €56M 5 years post commercialization. Immunitrack has unique capacities confirmed by our 90 customers within PrDx’s target group, from Europe, US and Asia, including several top pharma companies.