Asterion Develops Novel Therapeutic Proteins
Our mission is to design and develop superior, patient-friendly drugs for the treatment of serious chronic and acute disorders. Our patented technologies and products offer the promise of long-acting potent biopharmaceuticals that will require less frequent administration than existing marketed drugs. These products have the potential to improve healthcare outcomes and offer other potential benefits in terms of efficacy, side effect profile, compliance and manufacture.
To achieve our mission we apply innovative protein engineering techniques to create drugs for potential treatment of a variety of disorders. Asterion's approach is based on our expertise in structure-based drug design and medicine. Our pipeline of products promises treatments for conditions such as anaemia, neutropenia, multiple sclerosis, growth disorders and autoimmune disorders.
Asterion is a spin-out from the University of Sheffield, UK. The Company’s technologies were developed from collaboration between clinician, Prof. Richard Ross, structural biologist Prof. Peter Artymiuk and biochemist, Prof. Jon Sayers. Their combined clinical, structural and biotechnological expertise has produced a range of innovative and effective new technologies to support Asterion in its mission. Our ProFuse™ technology has been described in the respected journal
Asterion: Corporate Profile
Asterion engineers novel therapeutic products based on its highly innovative ProFuse™ technology. Asterion’s technologies represent a completely new approach to protein engineering. ProFuse™ is inspired by Nature and offers a physiologically–based and elegant solution to a critically important problem for the pharmaceutical industry: how to make long-acting biopharmaceuticals that retain physiological activity, have limited side-effects and which can be administered simply.
We aim to provide the next generation of BIOBETTER™ drugs for patients with chronic, debilitating diseases. Asterion has an extensive portfolio of third generation therapeutic products including growth hormone (GH) agonists (for treating growth disorders), GH antagonists (for treating acromegaly), AFT™–erythropoietin, (AFT™–EPO for treating anaemia), and AFT™–granulocyte colony stimulating factor (AFT™–G-CSF for treating neutropenia).
First generation therapeutic proteins such as insulin require frequent injection. Second generation products require less frequent injections but are complex to manufacture requiring complicated depot formulation or chemical modification e.g. PEGylation. Asterion’s third generation proteins are bioengineered for one-step manufacture, retain potent bioactivity and will require less frequent injection. Given that they are designed using completely native components, Asterion’s products also have the potential for a much improved immunogenicity profile.
