Therapeutics Beyond Brain Barriers program

Biologics are one of the most promising areas of medicine, and there is great potential to expand their reach to treat CNS indications. We are seeking collaborators to work on the following priorities:

• Developing novel CNS-targeting biologics;
• Re-engineering exisiting biotherapeutic pipelines to expand their reach to CNS indications;
• Evaluating blood-brain barrier permeability of client molecules; and
• Developing a pool of biotherapeutic assets for unconventional, difficult targets (ion channels, GPCRs, transporters).

The TBBB program offers unparalleled expertise and leading-edge facilities at three stages of development:

• Blood‑brain barrier carriers: Our BBB carriers can be customized for various types of therapeutic molecules to enable their delivery to the brain. Our expertise in Antibody Generation and Prioritization enables the design and use of single-domain antibodies as BBB carriers for our collaborators' biologics.
• Coupling and conjugation: NRC has experience coupling a variety of therapeutic molecules with its BBB carriers using chemical conjugation strategies as well as bi- and multi-specific fusion proteins and antibodies.
• Evaluating brain penetrating medicines: Translational science is essential to demonstrating brain penetration and efficacy of CNS biologics. Through our Functional Characterization and Analytics expertise, and our Preclinical in vivo Facility, NRC's proprietary BBB and CNS assays and test models are generating critical data for collaborators as they prepare their Investigational New Drug applications.

NRC serves as an R&D extension to our collaborators. We can de-risk product development, add significant value to biologic CNS candidates, and accelerate their progress through every step of the value chain up to early clinical trials.

Our business specialists have established best practices to guide the management and commercialization of intellectual property for co-developed products and enabling technologies.

We observe the rigorous standards set forth by Health Canada's Biologics and Genetic Therapies Directorate (BGTD), ensuring that all our co-developed products meet their regulatory approval requirements to be sold in Canada and other jurisdictions.