Anergis

Anergis is a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing novel allergy vaccines targeting the most common allergies.

Anergis SA is a Swiss-based biopharmaceutical company specializing in the discovery and development of novel allergy vaccines targeting the most frequent allergies. Allergies are the most prevalent and the fastest growing chronic conditions in the industrialized world with over 300 million people affected. While short-term symptomatic treatments of allergy need to be prescribed continuously, the only curative therapy of allergy, known as “desensitization” or “Specific Immunotherapy” (SIT), is a process of induction of tolerance to the allergen that today requires 3-5 years of treatment and poses the risk of serious side effects. Based on its proprietary Contiguous Overlapping Peptides (“COPs”) technology, which Anergis acquired from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland (UNIL), the Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) and the Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Vaudois (CHUV), the company is developing innovative SIT products containing socalled COPs that reproduce the full amino acid sequence of the allergen in separate long peptidic molecules. Anergis COPs do not cross-react with IgE, the antibody class responsible for eliciting allergic hypersensitivity. Thus, COPs can safely be administered at high doses to induce tolerance to the allergen after few injections only. Studies of COPs targeting bee venom and birch pollen allergies in both animals and humans have demonstrated excellent safety (no immediate allergic reaction) and immunogenicity (production of specific antibodies and cytokines against the original allergen) of Anergis products.