Adcentrx Therapeutics a biotechnology company focused on accelerating breakthroughs in antibody drug conjugate ("ADC") therapeutic development, and AvantGen, a leader in the use of yeast display technology for human antibody discovery and optimization, announced today a three-year, multi-target partnership for the discovery of antibodies to be developed into novel ADC therapeutic candidates.
Under the terms of the collaboration, Adcentrx will specify targets against which AvantGen will screen for novel antibodies using its yeast display system. Adcentrx will be responsible for engineering the antibodies into ADC therapeutic candidates and has worldwide development and commercialization rights. AvantGen will be eligible to receive milestone payments for achievement of certain development milestones.
"We are excited to enter this new partnership with AvantGen to accelerate our ADC development efforts. What attracted us to AvantGen initially is how their yeast display technology and human antibody libraries mimic human diversity to yield high affinity and very specific antibodies. Through our ongoing collaboration, AvantGen has demonstrated its capabilities in rapidly discovering a diverse antibody repertoire with high developability against defined targets. A key objective at Adcentrx, through this collaboration and opportunistic licensing activities, is to identify the best antibodies which we can leverage to assemble a pipeline of next generation ADC therapeutics."
Hui Li, Ph.D., President and CEO of Adcentrx
"We are proud to partner with Adcentrx to help accelerate its ADC pipeline build with our robust human antibody discovery platform," said Xiaomin Fan, Ph.D., President and CEO of AvantGen. "The speed that Adcentrx is able to take lead antibody candidates to development stage with its ADC technology is truly remarkable. We believe that this new partnership will enable Adcentrx to develop the most promising next generation ADC therapeutics with our high-quality antibodies."
About Adcentrx Therapeutics
Adcentrx is a biotechnology company focused on accelerating breakthroughs in protein conjugate therapeutic development for cancer and other life-threatening diseases. By combining the targeting precision of biologics and the disease fighting power of small molecule payloads, Adcentrx strives to develop next generation targeted therapies for improving patient treatment options.
About AvantGen
AvantGen, Inc is a leader in the use of yeast display technology for antibody discovery and optimization. Founded by experts in the creation of antibody discovery and optimization platforms, AvantGen excels in the rapid generation of antibodies for therapeutic, diagnostic and research tool applications. The Company's platforms include a robust yeast display system, large natural human antibody database, fully human antibody libraries comprised of over 100 billion antibody clones displayed by yeast cells, NK cell engager technology, flow cytometry-based and other screening technologies, as well as novel methodologies for rabbit monoclonal antibody and VHH nanobody generation. These versatile platforms can be used to discover antibodies directed at specific disease targets, affinity mature existing antibodies to improve their binding properties and humanize antibodies to render non-human antibodies suitable for human therapeutic applications, as well as generate rabbit monoclonal antibodies for applications that need extremely high specificity, such as antibodies capable of distinguishing point mutations and post-translational modifications for IHC, and anti-idiotype antibodies for PK studies. AvantGen's partners include pharmaceutical, biotech, diagnostic and government entities, many of which are repeat customers.