Beneficiary: AVICOR Research and Development Ltd.
Project title: Development of antibody-based drug candidates for the treatment of lung diseases
Project ID: 2017-1.3.1-VKE-2017-00028
Amount of support (Consortium): 855 444 000 Ft
Amount of support (Avicor Ltd.): 152 200 000 Ft
Support rate (Consortium): 73.2%
Support rate (Avicor Ltd.): 72.82%
Project Content: The focus of the project is on an antitumor target that is not yet used in therapy. Inhibition of this targeted through unique antibody development procedures has the potential to develop new antitumor or COPD therapies.
Estimated completion date of the project: 31.12.2018.

The most serious and currently incurable chronic pulmonary disease besides lung cancer is COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), which is also a national disease in Hungary, registering 15-16 thousand of new patients a year, with an estimated total number of patients over 600 000. The elevated level of a galactose-binding protein has recently been shown in the small airway epithelial cells of severe cases of COPD, which correlated with the growth of neutrophil granulocytes and the proliferation of epithelial cells and the severity of respiratory obstruction. Proliferation and galectins both have important role in lung cancer also. Our aim is to develop two original therapeutic antibodies which exhibit specific binding and activity for galactose-binding proteins. This will establish new type of biotechnology based drug development. The consortium will also be developing a small molecule for new types of asthma and COPD.