In a departure from conventional methods of biological drug discovery, which use mouse antibodies, Epitomics’ unique approach utilizes monoclonal antibodies from rabbits, potentially improving the quality and efficiency of drug discovery. Epitomics will receive event payments and future royalties on worldwide sales of products developed from RabMab technology.
“Roche believes that innovation is driven by truly differentiated scientific and technological approaches to medicine. In line with our Therapeutic Protein Initiative, this partnership offers a progressive and complementary approach to biologic drug discovery,” said Klaus Strein, Roche’s Head of Pharma Research, Penzberg, Germany.
Compared to currently available MAb technology on the market, such as mouse hybridomas, Epitomics’ technology can generate RabMAbs more efficiently and can offer RabMAbs with superior binding affinity and bioactivity in a wide variety of biological assays. The high throughput and robust nature of the technology allows for the simultaneous discovery of disease targets and potential therapeutic antibodies in the same experiments, significantly shortening the drug discovery and development cycle.