Technology

Next Biomed’s proprietary protein engineering approach produces high-affinity binders to target proteins of diagnostic interest, including highly variable viral antigens. The company utilizes various high-affinity polypeptides, such as modified SH3 domains, to create novel recombinant binder proteins. Thereby Next Biomed is addressing the outstanding challenges in the development of immunodiagnostic assays – sensitivity and target variability. Next Biomed’s lead molecules have rationally designed binding specificities, and their properties are systematically improved through protein engineering to generate binder proteins that outperform monoclonal antibodies.

Due to the extreme genetic variability of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), reliable early detection of HIV infection continues to be a major diagnostic challenge. Therefore, the initial focus of Next Biomed’s R&D has been to develop improved tools for enabling HIV p24 antigen detection in a manner that is more sensitive and less vulnerable to viral sequence variation than the currently available diagnostic tests.