Welcome to ProtAffin

ProtAffin AG is a biotechnology company in Austria developing a novel class of biopharmaceutical products that act by targeting cell-surface glycan structures. ProtAffin’s products are first-in-class engineered versions of human proteins which bind to cell surface glycans (sugars) to affect their biological activity.  Activated versions of specific cell surface glycans underlie inflammatory processes in several diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder, Crohn’s disease and cancer and represent a rich and relatively under-investigated class of potential drug targets for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries.  Protaffin’s approach is entirely innovative and opens up glycans as druggable targets through the use of its CellJammer^® discovery platform.

 

ProtAffin’s lead product is PA401, a modified form of the human chemokine IL-8. PA401 acts as a potent, targeted anti-inflammatory protein preventing the infiltration of neutrophils which are a hallmark of many chronic respiratory diseases and acute inflammatory diseases. PA401 is in pre-clinical development for chronic inflammatory diseases. A patent encompassing PA401 and other interleukin-8 variants was granted in the EU in 2009.