Our AEA™ Platform is a genetically manipulated Chinese hamster ovary (“CHO”) cell line with the FUT8 gene knocked-out from its genome to generate antibodies with enhanced ADCC and improved anti-tumor activities. Through this genome modification, the CHO cell line will not be able to catalyze the transfer of fucose residue from its donor to its target, and thus is not able to produce any antibody that carries fucose. Because absence of core fucose on the Fc region has been shown to increase the Fc region’s binding affinity (up to 100 times) to its receptor FcRIIIa present on immune effector cells, fucose-negative antibodies are expected to have enhanced ADCC activities through better activating immune effector cells.
SunHo ADCC Enhanced Antibody Platform, AEA™
AEA™ Platform is expected to produce antibodies with 0% of fucose, which rapidly, stably and thoroughly enhances the ADCC of antibodies and simplifies quality control of the products. IAH0968, the potential first complete fucose-removal anti-HER2-antibody in clinical stage was developed through this platform. We have verified through glycoprotein detection and glycosylation quantification that IAH0968 does not contain any fucose.