Wednesday, January 17, 2018
AvantGen, Inc., a privately-held antibody discovery and optimization service provider, today announced the successful completion of a first cancer therapeutic antibody discovery program and initiation of a second program for Tanabe Research Laboratories USA, Inc. (TRL).
Under the terms of the collaboration, AvantGen is responsible for generating novel antibodies to specified cancer targets using its proprietary human antibody yeast display technology platform. TRL has worldwide rights to develop and commercialize antibodies discovered by AvantGen. AvantGen receives upfront payments and is eligible to receive milestone payments and royalties associated with the development and sale of any products derived from the collaboration.
“AvantGen’s antibody discovery and optimization platforms have been extensively validated against hundreds of targets primarily through numerous NIH SBIR I and II funded projects. Since the recent introduction of our new, state-of-the-art human antibody discovery and optimization platform, this second project with TRL represents the 15th de novo antibody discovery project we have initiated specifically for our corporate partners,” said Xiaomin Fan, Ph.D., founder and president of AvantGen. “The platforms utilize advantageous technologies, including a robust yeast display system, large natural human antibody database and fully human antibody libraries, for the generation of antibodies to meet challenging design goals for therapeutic, diagnostic and research tool purposes.”
“The therapeutic antibody discovery program conducted by AvantGen was highly collaborative and was accomplished faster than expected, without the need to further optimize the antibodies in order to meet TRL’s design goals,” said Roland Newman, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for TRL. “We look forward to working together on the second program and others in the future.”
