York bio-tech company, the Aptamer Group, says it is working with Kairos Biotech of Wales to develop a solution to stop transplant rejection.

Kairos Biotech will use Aptamer’s Optimer binder technology as they target an £800 million transplant diagnostic sector and a potential £2 billion transplant immunotherapy market.

Aptamer Group CTO Dr Arron Tolley said: “We’re delighted to bring our proprietary Optimer®+ platform to support Kairos Biotech in this game-changing theranostic application.

“Initial animal studies have shown the Optimer®+ binders to be well tolerated for therapeutic approaches, and the exquisite specificity of these binders is ideally suited to such a large-scale diagnostic and therapeutic project.

“The team at Kairos has an exciting scientific approach to immunosuppression that could offer an improved outlook for transplant patients, and we look forward to working with them to advance this using Optimer®+.”

Last week, the Aptamer Group plc has filed a patent for the binder applications it has developed with Unilever.

The biotech company’s binders are typically used to boost the efficacy of life science treatments but look now to have potential in cosmetics.

Dr Arron Tolley, Chief Technical Officer of Aptamer Group, said: “The submission of this patent is an important milestone for Aptamer Group and supports the next stages of commercial advancement with Unilever.

“We will continue to work closely with the team at Unilever to support their use of the binders in this exciting new application.”

Dr Samantha Samaras, Senior Vice President of R&D at Unilever, said: “Over the past 12 months we have been working with the excellent team at Aptamer Group to discover, develop and exploit their Optimer binders for cosmetic applications. We look forward to continued collaboration in this exciting applications space.”