Asimov And RevOpsis Collaborate On RO-104 For Retinal Vascular Diseases

Asimov, a synthetic biology company focused on advancing therapeutics, has announced a licensing agreement with RevOpsis Therapeutics, an innovative biopharmaceutical company specialising in multispecific biologics for ophthalmic treatments. The partnership follows a successful collaboration between the two companies, using Asimov’s CHO Edge System to develop a cell line for RevOpsis's lead asset, RO-104.

Asimov co-founder and CEO Alec Nielsen, said in a statement, “Asimov’s CHO Edge System continues to gain rapid adoption since its launch last year. We are delighted that RevOpsis is joining the growing set of partners that are putting their trust in our platform. CHO Edge will form the cornerstone of its bioproduction process for an impactful therapeutic that will serve unmet needs in a growing patient population.

We look forward to supporting their biological development as they progress through clinical trials.” 

As part of the agreement, RevOpsis will incorporate the CHO Edge System into developing and commercialising RO-104, a first-in-class, fully modular tri-specific biologic designed to treat retinal vascular diseases. RO-104 targets three key angiogenic pathways (VEGF-A, VEGF-C, Ang-2), which play a central role in diseases such as neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic macular edema. With clinical progress on RO-104 advancing, RevOpsis plans to begin IND-enabling studies in January 2025.

Ramanath Bhandari, RevOpsis co-founder and CEO, stated, “RevOpsis is committed to the rapid discovery and development of novel multispecific therapies utilising our modular RevMod™ Platform that consists of fully-human libraries. Asimov’s CHO Edge System has exhibited great performance. It will underpin the development and commercialisation of our lead clinical asset RO-104 for treating retinal vascular disease progression, including neovascular age-related macular degeneration.” 

The CHO Edge System, which includes a GMP-banked CHO-K1 glutamine synthetase (GS) knockout host and an optional GS-Fut8 double knockout for afucosylated antibody production, leverages a hyperactive transposase, a library of over 1,000 genetic parts for vector design, and cutting-edge AI and biophysics models. This system helps create stable, high-titer cell lines with exceptional product quality, optimising the expression vector and bioreactor processes for various biologic modalities.