The smart goose in drug development​​​

“In 2021, we started with a humanized sequence of an antibody on paper and now, four years later, we are in clinical phase 1,” says Louis Boon, CSO of JJP biologics. “And soon we will be testing on a small patient population. The fact that it could go so quickly has to do with the right smart choices that you have to make as a small company. I will explain that in more detail in my lecture,” he says. “You have to be a smart goose that does not crash into an obstacle or building along the way but adapts in time.”

When many wind turbines were installed in the Netherlands years ago, conservationists objected because they believed that many geese crashed into wind turbines. “I have always thought that was nonsense,” says Boon. “If you always fly straight ahead, and you cannot adapt or change direction, then you will be selected out, and you are a stupid goose. That is called evolution. In pharmaceutical development, the road to the ready medicine is not a straight road either. From development phase, to preclinical, and phase 1, 2 and 3, seems like a straight path, but in practice that straight path does not exist and you will occasionally have to deviate cleverly. I not only had to make scientific choices, but also had to think about how to create a company where everyone uses their expertise for the company and feels comfortable in the company.”

Bioceros

Over the years, Boon gained a lot of experience in researching and developing medicines and in business management. After his PhD in biochemistry at the AMC, he noticed that academic science was not his world. He started a company focused on therapeutic MAbs and sold it to an American partner. The partner went public and closed the Dutch branch. In 2003, Boon started a new company, Bioceros, which focused on both product development and service in order to be able to chart its own course and remain independent of venture capitalists. “Such a hybrid form was quite exceptional at the time. There weren’t many doing that,” says Boon.

After developing a number of products, Bioceros set up a CHO (cell line) platform in 2007. CHO- cells are the most commonly used mammalian hosts for industrial production of recombinant protein therapeutics. “Of course you want to test such a cell line with a real antibody. It was also the time when biosimilars were emerging. We started with a nice cell line that is well documented for the production of trastuzumab. Within a few years we had a portfolio of 12 biosimilar cell lines and we became interesting for biosimilar companies.”

Polpharma Biologics

In 2016, Bioceros was acquired by Polpharma Biologics, the biologics brand owned by the Starak family, who originally founded a Polish generic small molecule company currently with 6,000 employees and a turnover of more than 1 billion. Boon worked on biosimilars for a number of years, until he was asked by the the owner (Mr. Jerzy Starak) in 2020 to start a company around the four antibodies he had on paper. That company became JJP Biologics.

Boon made a five-year plan and in April 2021 he officially started together with a CEO. There are now approximately 45 people working there and there are three locations, a head office in Warsaw, a location at the Bioscience Park in Leiden and an expression laboratory (Gdansk) in Poland.

Anti-CD89 antibody

The anti-CD89 antibody from JJP Biologics that is now being tested in the clinical phase could play an important role in the treatment of autoimmune diseases. CD89 is a receptor protein that is located on myeloid cells (such as neutrophils) to which the constant part (Fc) of a human IgA antibody can bind. This binding probably plays an important role in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and other autoimmune diseases such as IgA nephropathy and IgA vasculitis. In RA patients with a high titer of IgA autoantibody, the disease is more severe and these patients are refractory to current treatments.

The anti-CD89 antibody blocks the binding between IgA autoantibodies (via the CD89 receptor) and myeloid cells with CD89. "Since we have chosen the side of the receptor (anti-CD89), this antibody can perhaps be used against 20 different autoimmune diseases," says Boon.

Single-use technology

"It goes without saying that we use single-use technology in our research and the development of medicines," says Boon. “Single-use (SU) is almost exclusively about biopharmaceutical production. The convenience and advantages, such as no contamination, faster conversion are obvious. If we want to produce our medicine locally everywhere in exactly the same way, that is much easier with SU. You also see that hardly any facilities are being built with stainless steel.”

Dr. Louis Boon

Louis Boon is the CSO and Management Board Member of JJP Biologics, an innovative new Polish Company backed by the Starak family. JJP Biologics develops the next generation of novel therapeutic biologics around personalized medicine and companion diagnostics (JJP Biologics: Overview | LinkedIn). Boon was the founder of various companies focused on the generation and development of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, primarily in the field of cancer and inflammation. He is an author of over 390 publications in international scientific journals in the field of medical biotechnology and an inventor at more than 20 patent applications.

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