Founding partners participating in the program include: argenx, Crystal Bioscience and Sevion Therapeutics.
The program combines Tetragenetics’ unique and proprietary antigen production capabilities with each partner’s novel antibody discovery platform. This approach incorporates broad phylogenetic diversity to ensure the highest probability of success and marks an important shift in Tetragenetics’ business model to develop its own pipeline of pre-clinical antibody assets.
Using Tetragenetics’ recombinant human ion channels for both immunization and mAb screening, argenx will conduct four discovery programs using llamas, Crystal Bioscience four programs using chickens, and Sevion Therapeutics three programs using cows. Target ion channels in these programs include Nav1.7, Nav1.8, Kv1.3, as well as others.
argenx CEO Tim Van Hauwermeiren said: "Our SIMPLE AntibodyTM platform has the unique ability to generate highly diverse antibodies with unparalleled epitope coverage and human composition. SIMPLE AntibodyTM delivers ultra-potent antibodies against highly conserved and novel targets previously believed to be intractable. Combining our platform with Tetragenetics’ unique antigen expression system has exciting potential to accelerate antibody drug discovery and development."
"We are thrilled to be participating in Tetragenetics’ new program for antibody discovery noted Dr. Rob Etches, CEO, of Crystal Bioscience. Birds diverged from mammals approximately 300 million years ago, providing a unique advantage today over other animal systems used for antibody discovery. Chickens are more likely to respond to human antigens as foreign matter with a robust antibody response and we look forward to demonstrating this with Tetragenetics’ recombinant proteins."
Sevion Therapeutics CEO David Rector said: "This is an exciting new partnership for us. We are excited to combine the unique antigen expression system from Tetragenetics with our novel bovine antibody discovery platform."
Tetragenetics CEO Doug Kahn said: "We’ve identified some highly sought after, but challenging drug targets and we are pleased to have these three initial partners pursuing independent mAb discovery programs against them. We believe this partnership program, with its phylogenetic diversity, has great potential for producing human drugs against these well-validated targets. The combination of Tetragenetics’ unique proteins and our partners’ novel antibody discovery platforms is powerful and unprecedented in our industry."