VIENNA -- HD Immune GmbH (HDI), a privately held biotechnology company developing novel antibody treatments for Huntington’s Disease, announces commencement of operations by its two founders Dr. Stefan Bartl and Dr. Lionel Wightman. HDI has acquired the patents and assets of the Huntington’s disease program from AFFiRiS AG. HDI has also closed a pre-seed financing round with an Austrian Business Angel and awarded an Austria Wirtschafts Service (AWS) pre-seed Grant. Furthermore, HDI announces the successful application with the Austrian Centre of Industrial Biotechnology (acib) Comet24 program allowing for HDI to collaborate with the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology (BOKU, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna) for HDI’s research programs.

Dr. Stefan Bartl, CEO of HDI, comments: “With the acquirement of the Huntington’s disease program that I was developing previously at AFFiRiS AG, HD Immune starts in a position where we have very impressive pre-clinical data demonstrating the efficacy of treating transgenic model of Huntington’s Disease with our lead monoclonal antibody C6-17, which has been recently published. We are in the process of humanizing this antibody for the treatment of patients aiming to slow down the progression of the disease, thereby increasing the quality of life for the patient. Currently there are no therapies that can directly treat the mutant Huntingtin protein available for patients.”

HD Immune’s new pre-clinical publication can be found on the company webpage for downloading: www.hdimmune.com

HD Immune and Huntington’s Disease

Huntington’s disease (HD) is a fatal neurodegenerative disease with clinical symptoms becoming manifest typically in the fourth decade of life and progress to a severe neurological and psychiatric deterioration of the patient. HD is a rare monogenetic disorder, where the mutation leads to a structurally changed mutant Huntingtin protein (mtHTT) which forms aggregates in the brain.

HD Immune is developing an antibody to target the mutated protein and remove it from the body. HDI has a lead antibody mAB C6-17 which lowers mtHTT in the blood, organs and CNS and, further, improved motor performance in transgenic mice expressing human mutant protein. Based on these results, HD Immune intends to further advance the development of a human therapeutic antibody to reduce the symptoms of the disease in the patient.