A published paper in Biotechniques from the laboratory of Dr Darren Tomlinson at the University of Leeds, UK, demonstrates key characteristics exhibited by Affimer reagents in capturing target proteins from complex matrices and shows how they outperform commercially available Fab fragments as critical reagents in clinical PK assays.
Four inhibitory anti-idiotypic Affimer reagents to the therapeutic antibodies trastuzumab, rituximab, adalimumab and ipilimumab showed excellent performance in this study in terms of target specificity, sensitivity and assay dynamic range in a standard sandwich ELISA format for PK assays. Furthermore, the calibration curve metrics for these assays and the batch-to-batch reproducibility of anti-ID Affimer reagents were shown to meet regulatory guidelines, demonstrating the significant advantages offered by the use of anti-ID Affimer reagents as antibody alternatives in the development of clinical PK assays.
Avacta Group Plc (LON:AVCT) offers reagents and therapeutics based on Affimer technology for diagnostic and research applications in the United Kingdom. The company’s custom Affimer products are also used in drugs and biomarkers discovery in biotech research and development.