Nature Biotechnology has published a comprehensive paper entitled “A recombinant polypeptide extends the in vivo half-life of peptides and proteins in a tunable manner.” The paper describes the design of Amunix’s polypeptide sequence XTEN and presents preclinical data for Versartis’ product candidates VRS-859 as a monthly-dosed treatment for type 2 diabetes and VRS-317 as a monthly-dosed treatment for growth hormone deficiency.

The most advanced XTEN product is Exenatide-XTEN (VRS-859) for type II diabetes, which is being developed by Versartis Inc. (www.versartis.com). VRS-859 is currently      being manufactured for use in clinical trials in 2010. Versartis was created in December 2008 by Amunix and Index Ventures as a 50/50-owned joint venture to focus on clinical development of three products (VRS-826, VRS-859, and VRS-317) that it has licensed from Amunix. These products were created at Amunix and use Amunix’ XTEN half-life    extension technology. »