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You are here: Home / Archives for Antibody discovery

Funding the Development of Antibody Innovations, Part 2: Business Angels and Venture Capitalists

May 26, 2021 by The Antibody Society

By Tom Burt (Partner, Sofinnova Partners) & Nick Hutchinson (BSG Lead, Mammalian Cell Culture, FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies)

Antibody scientists with exciting technologies typically require substantial amounts of capital to develop their ideas and turn them into products that can be marketed. In the case of therapeutic antibodies, this can take many years and cost millions if not billions of dollars. In our first post on raising finance to support antibody innovations, we described why scientists are excited about raising finance at the current time (1). In this second post, we explore possible sources of funding for newly formed antibody companies at the very beginning of the funding cycle.

Venture capitalist (VCs) firms have traditionally been significant sources of funding for start-up biotech companies because they are undeterred by the risk that an individual company may not generate a return due to the challenges of product development in this sector. In order to generate a return on their investments, VCs back numerous start-ups in the hope that a minority will win big. However, for most scientists attempting to commercialize the fruits of their research labors, VCs are probably not the first port of call when attempting to raise funds. Biotech start-ups commonly rely on pre-seed funding in the form of government grants, bank loans, technology transfer funding from universities and even family or friends.

Business Angels are also sources of early finance. These are often individual, or syndicates of wealthy, private individuals that invest their own money in sectors that they know and understand. They typically make smaller investments than VC, usually up to $2 million, but small companies can often obtain the funds sooner. Angel investors are often interested in being involved in the project and are able to provide mentoring and access to useful networks in addition to the funding they bring.

Start-up biotechs use this seed funding to protect their intellectual property and progress their idea sufficiently such that VCs or other partners will become interested in the technology. Fortunately, in the past few years the cost of research infrastructure has gone down, allowing start-up companies to make greater progress with their ideas prior to reaching out to the VC community. Low rent lab-space is now more commonly available, suppliers provide more convenient ways to access equipment, and entrepreneurial scientists can outsource more routine studies and testing to contract research organizations.

Antiverse, a UK-based biotech start-up, recently announced it had raised £1.4 million [US$2m] to fund the development of its Artificial Intelligence-powered antibody discovery technology for accelerating antibody drug development by accurately predicting antibody-antigen binding. The company believes their platform will enable the development of antibody drugs for difficult targets associated with cancer, and heart and lung diseases. It will use the money to further develop the platform, to build a new laboratory in Cardiff, Wales, and to recruit specialist machine-learning engineers, laboratory scientists and structural biologists. The funding was raised from The Development Bank of Wales and a syndicate of Angel Investors.

While the levels of pre-seeding funding might not match that provided by VCs, some founding scientists see a benefit in taking maximum advantage of investments that allow them to retain greater control.

Tom Burt of Sofinnova Partners says, “To truly scale a start-up requires quantums of growth capital that can really only feasibly be provided by VCs. Beyond the necessary capital, VCs are also helpful to emerging companies in more qualitative ways, given their accumulated experience of financing other similar enterprises. VCs can contribute by attracting talent to Board and Management-level positions who increase the probability of success through sage advice on all areas of development.”

“In addition, the VC’s network can be invaluable in forging connections with potential pharma and biotech partners as well as investors and bankers for assistance with further financings. While the founder can expect some loss of control, VCs are typically minority investors looking to work collegially with other stakeholders to improve outcomes,” he continues.

In our next post, we’ll look at the first two rounds of financing that VCs provide to antibody start-up companies and we’ll introduce the concept of the cross-over fund, a relatively new concept by which VCs invest in promising companies that have the near-term potential to list their shares on a stock exchange.

Look for the third post in the series next week.

(1)    Burt T. & Hutchinson N. Funding the Development of Antibody Innovations. Part 1: Entrepreneurial Antibody Scientists.

 

Filed Under: Antibody discovery, Finance, Venture capital Tagged With: antibody discovery, antiverse

Funding the Development of Antibody Innovations, Part 1: Entrepreneurial Antibody Scientists

May 19, 2021 by The Antibody Society

By Tom Burt (Partner, Sofinnova Partners) & Nick Hutchinson (BSG Lead, Mammalian Cell Culture, FUJIFILM Diosynth Biotechnologies)

The Antibody Society has partnered with Tom Burt, Partner at Sofinnova Partners, a leading European venture capital firm in life sciences, specializing in healthcare and sustainability to produce a 4-part series of articles explaining the basics of financing a start-up biotech company. Our aim is to support and inspire researchers working in labs with a passion for their science and the drive to push their ideas as far as they will go. In Part 1, we discuss the characteristics of the entrepreneurial antibody scientist.

As of 2021, the pipeline of therapeutic antibodies is strong and the biopharmaceutical industry is enjoying unprecedented success in bringing new products to market (1). The launch of new antibody drugs can have a tremendous impact on the lives of patients suffering from diseases for which there are either no existing treatments or current treatments are lacking. Technological developments, such as Fc engineering, bi- and multi-specific antibody formats and antibody-drug conjugates will lead to improved antibody treatments in the future. Not all advances in antibody science are new drugs, however, and many are leading to new enabling research tools and novel diagnostics. The amount of innovation in the sector, driven by creative scientists working in labs around the world, is startling.

Scientists developing antibody therapeutics must progress the idea through discovery and development phases, including preclinical and clinical testing, with various regulatory hurdles that must be navigated before commercial launch can take place. Large pharma and biotech companies are well versed in managing the complexity and costs of antibody development and commercialization, but there is always room in the market for smaller, more agile players who can compete on an equal footing with these giants.

Entrepreneurial scientists are eschewing the traditional career pathways of staying in academia or joining large pharma companies (2) in favor of establishing their own companies. They are raising money to finance discovery and development, while managing their biotech businesses in order to turn their ideas into a reality. By adopting this approach, founders can retain much greater control of their inventions, can align the development of their technology with their own values, and furthermore, stand to benefit financially if their candidate is shown to be successful.

“It’s an excellent time to be considering raising finance for biotech start-ups. Investors have lots of capital that is waiting to be deployed and society is re-considering how it values medtech innovations in light of the pandemic,” explained Tom.

Investors’ attitudes to these different types of start-up will vary depending on the size of the investment that the company will need, the level of risk associated with the investment, the size of the likely return and the time it will take to see a return. Raising finance for different types of antibody start-up companies will depend on the business model and the nature of the innovation being commercialized. A technology for antibody discovery embedded in a piece of equipment will differ from an amino acid sequence that can be licensed, which will differ from an antibody therapeutic requiring ten years and hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars before any revenues are generated.

“Investors in therapeutics are very wary of “one-trick ponies” with only a single drug candidate,” says Tom. “We look for companies with innovative technologies that might be applied to a number of candidates for multiple disease targets. This reduces risks by ensuring the start-up can have multiple shots on goal.”

One such example is the start-up antibody company Gigagen, which was recently acquired by Grifols, a specialist in plasma-derived medicine. Gigagen’s Magnify Platform enables the identification of rare novel targets within the tumor microenvironment, which in turn can be fed into its Surge Platform, allowing the production of recombinant polyclonal antibodies derived from mammalian repertoires. The company has an oncology pipeline containing monoclonal and bispecific antibodies and a recombinant polyclonal immunoglobulin pipeline, which includes treatments for COVID-19 and other infectious diseases.

Like other start-up biotechs, Gigagen had licensed these platforms technologies to other antibody discovery and development companies in order to generate early revenues, before using them as a springboard to launch their own candidate development programmes.

In the next three posts in this series, we’ll explain the start-up financing cycle and how it relates to antibody companies, especially those developing antibody products for therapeutic use. We’ll use industry examples to describe different types of investors in antibody innovations, what they look for in a company or idea, and their expectations as to how the funding is utilized. We will also explain how the funding cycle is changing, which will help inventors fund the clinical journey more easily.

Watch for our second post next week!

1.       Kaplon H & Reichert JM (2021) Antibodies to watch in 2021. mAbs.

2.       Friedman J. How Biotech Startup Funding Will Changing in the Next 10 Years.

 

Filed Under: Antibody discovery, Finance, Venture capital Tagged With: financing, funding, Gigagen, venture capital

Congratulations to the Antibody Engineering & Therapeutics Europe poster competition winners!

May 10, 2021 by Janice Reichert

To recognize the research activities of promising student/postdoctoral fellows, The Antibody Society sponsors a competition each year for members who submit posters for Antibody Engineering & Therapeutics Europe. This conference will be held virtually June 8-10, 2021.
Our judges select the best work based on originality, relevance and perceived impact on the field of antibody research and development.

 

Winners receive:

1) Complimentary registration to attend the conference and pre-conference sessions;
2) An opportunity to give a short oral presentation of their work in one of the conference sessions;
3) A lovely crystal award.

We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2021 poster competition:

Ms. Suchada Niamsuphap, Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology.

Poster title: Development of antibody delivery systems against intracellular targets

and

Dr. Vaishali Verma, University of Delhi South Campus.

Poster title: ImPACT: Immunization-free Phage-based Antibody Cloning Technology

More about these winners and the winners of past competitions can be found here.

Please join us for the virtual Antibody Engineering & Therapeutics Europe conference on June 8-10 to hear their presentations!

Society members receive a 15% discount on the registration fee. Contact us at membership@antibodysociety.org for the code.

Filed Under: Antibody discovery, Antibody therapeutic Tagged With: antibody discovery, antibody therapeutics

Call for Papers on Biopharmaceutical Informatics

January 19, 2021 by Janice Reichert

As evident from papers published in mAbs in recent years, computation is being increasingly used in the discovery and development of antibody-based biologic drugs. To celebrate the rise of biopharmaceutical informatics directed towards antibody R & D, we invite The Antibody Society members, mAbs readers and the broader scientific community to contribute review articles focused on highlighting how computation has enabled their investigations or led them to new ones. The reviews should narrate the state of the art and speculate on new vistas for computational applications in the field.

We are particularly interested in reviews in the following topics:

  • Analyses of immune repertoires and their role in target validation and drug discovery.
  • Analyses of antibody structure-function relationships with emphasis on therapeutic antibody-based biologics.
  • Structure-based design of antibody fragments (e.g., nanobodies) and antibody-based multi-specific molecular formats.
  • Design of antibody libraries for different display strategies and/or with improved developability.
  • Structure-based affinity maturation and optimization of biologic lead candidates.
  • Molecular simulations of antibodies to understand their solution behaviors, such as aggregation, viscosity and physicochemical degradation.
  • Consideration of developability in biologic drug discovery and design.
  • Developability assessments at early-stage development.
  • Specific and non-specific interactions formed by antibodies in vitro and in vivo.
  • Computation in antibody formulations – design of novel excipients.
  • Applications of artificial Intelligence and machine learning towards antibody discovery, development and manufacturing.
  • Progress and challenges in modeling antibodies and multi-specific formats.
  • Predicting chemical degradation in antibody-based biologic drugs.
  • Optimizing antigens for greater immunization success.

Although these topics are especially of interest, we welcome well-written reviews in related areas as well.

Publication charges will be waived for six of the best review articles selected from pre-submission inquiries, which should consist of the title, abstract and general outline of the intended review article.

The deadline for the pre-submission enquiries is February 15, 2021, and the deadline for submission of the completed review articles is June 30, 2021.

Please send pre-submission inquiries to Assistant Editor Dr. Sandeep Kumar (skumarmabs@gmail.com) and Editor-in-Chief Dr. Janice Reichert (reichert.biotechconsulting@gmail.com), and contact us if you have any questions.

Filed Under: Antibody discovery Tagged With: antibody discovery, antibody therapeutics, bioinformatics

Antibody Discovery in the Cloud: Using NGS to expand the universe of selectable antibodies

January 13, 2021 by The Antibody Society

Registration for this free event is now open!

January 21 2021, 9am PST/12 ET/6pm CET

Speakers: Drs. Andrew Bradbury and M. Frank Erasmus (Specifica)

Antibody Discovery in the Cloud: Using NGS to expand the universe of selectable antibodies

The Specifica Generation 3 platform is able to generate 500-5000 different antibody clonotypes against targets of interest, with over 80% of selected antibodies having no measurable biophysical liabilities and 20% having subnanomolar affinities. The most common approach to selecting antibodies from display technologies involves low-throughput random colony screening. However, this missed many potential therapeutic leads, particularly when diversity is high. Specifica uses next generation sequencing (NGS) to build its libraries as well as characterize selection outputs. In order to fully exploit the universe of selectable antibodies, Specifica has developed a cloud-based software platform, designed exclusively for antibody engineers and bioinformaticians, to enable a streamlined identification of leads with broad epitope coverage. Application of this to selection outputs has increased the number of clonotype leads by five to ten fold over random colony screening, significantly expanding the explorable paratope space.

Click here to register!

Filed Under: Antibody discovery Tagged With: antibody discovery, next-generation sequencing

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