Avidity Biosciences Inc.

• Avidity Biosciences Inc.
• Health-Care

RNA

We are pioneering a new class of oligonucleotide-based therapies called Antibody Oligonucleotide Conjugates (AOCs) designed to overcome the current limitations of oligonucleotide therapies in order to treat a wide range of serious diseases. We utilize our proprietary AOC platform to design, engineer and develop therapeutics that combine the tissue selectivity of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) and the precision of oligonucleotide therapies in order to access previously undruggable tissue and cell types and more effectively target underlying genetic drivers of diseases.

We are initially focused on muscle diseases to demonstrate the capabilities of our AOCs, and our muscle franchise consists of five programs. Our lead product candidate, AOC 1001, is designed to treat myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1), a rare monogenic muscle disease. We expect to submit an investigational new drug application (IND) for AOC 1001 in 2021 and plan to initiate a Phase 1/2 clinical trial by the end of the same year. We also intend to advance AOC product candidates in our four other muscle programs focused on the treatment of muscle atrophy, Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) and Pompe disease. In addition to our muscle franchise, we have development efforts focused on immune and other cell types.

Our AOC Platform

Oligonucleotide therapeutics are designed based on genomic information to specifically inhibit or modify the expression of disease-related proteins and RNAs. Considerable progress has been made toward harnessing the potential of oligonucleotides, and multiple oligonucleotide therapies have been approved for the treatment of several diseases. However, in light of their physical properties, effective systemic delivery of oligonucleotides to a broad range of cells and organs has been one of the most significant factors limiting their utility. Our deep experience with oligonucleotide therapeutics, modulation of RNA processes, antibody engineering and conjugation, and drug delivery techniques provide the foundation for our efforts to address some of the key limitations of oligonucleotide therapies. We collectively refer to the know-how and proprietary technology born out of this experience, and their systematic application in the design and development of our product candidates, as our AOC platform.

Using our AOC platform, we have established a framework for screening potential cell surface protein-mAb pairs to determine which pairs are well-suited to deliver oligonucleotides to specific cell types to induce pharmacologic changes. In addition to engineering optimized mAbs, we are able to engineer and deploy various types of oligonucleotides whose specific mechanisms of action are designed to modify RNA function in different ways. This flexibility allows us to use oligonucleotides tailored to have the potential to modulate a given disease process, and we further engineer our oligonucleotides to maximize their specificity, potency and stability. Beyond the specific mAb and oligonucleotide components of our engineered AOCs, we also optimize the antibody conjugate design, including the linker, for stability and durability. 

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