Humaneering is KaloBios’s proprietary method for converting non-human antibodies into engineered human antibodies for therapeutic drug applications. The system has the advantage of maintaining epitope specificity and increasing affinity.
Under the first agreement, the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation’s (GNF’s) high affinity and high potency non-human antibody drug candidate was humaneered by KaloBios. The humaneered antibody that KaloBios delivered met or exceeded all GNF and Novartis defined success criteria, triggering a success payment.
KaloBios claims the humaneered antibodies are as close as, if not closer to human germline sequences than the products of fully human antibody generation techniques. KaloBios is offering access to its humaneering capabilities on a limited basis.
In exchange for creating this engineered human antibody therapeutic, KaloBios receives research and success fees, and can receive additional milestones and royalties upon successful completion of clinical trials. The companies also announced the commencement of a second broader agreement. Exact terms of either agreement were not disclosed.