Syngle Therapeutics’ goal is to develop an immunotherapy for Parkinson’s disease. For that purpose Syngle possesses several highly specific antibodies that have been acquired from Crossbeta Biosciences.

Worldwide more than 6 million people have Parkinson’s disease and this number is rapidly growing. Current medication helps by reducing symptoms, but a disease modifying treatment that can slowdown or halt progression is not yet available.

In general, alphasynuclein is considered the key target for Parkinson’s disease. This protein is the main component of Lewy bodies, the histopathological hallmark in the brain of Parkinson patients. Especially the small aggregates of alphasynuclein, also referred to as oligomers, are thought to play an important role in Parkinson pathology. An antibody that can neutralize or eradicate these oligomers could thus offer perspective for a treatment that would intervene at the root of the disease. 

In the past few years, supported with a grant of The Michael J Fox Foundation, a non-profit US organization which is dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease, Crossbeta has worked successfully towards identifying antibodies that are specifically directed against these harmful oligomers. The most promising antibodies resulting from this program have now been assigned to the new company Syngle Therapeutics.Guus Scheefhals, CEO of Syngle Therapeutics: “We are privileged and very excited that we can get to work with this set of antibodies. The properties, in particular of candidate 26F1, are very promising and appear highly suited to capture the oligomers, the most toxic species of alphasynuclein. This is also underscored by a recent publication (biorxiv.org) in which 26F1 is compared on several aspects with 15 other antibodies that claim a similar profile. Ultimately, we hope that this will offer an effective treatment to Parkinson patients that not only reduces symptoms, but effectively interferes with the progression of the disease.