Acquisition enhances AbCellera’s ability to generate large databases of human antibodies for drug discovery programs
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, November 18, 2020 – AbCellera, a technology company that searches, decodes, and analyzes natural immune systems to find antibodies that can be developed to prevent and treat disease, today announced it has acquired Trianni, Inc. in an all-cash transaction valued at US$90 million. The acquisition deepens AbCellera’s technology stack with a suite of genetically engineered mice for generating diverse panels of human antibodies with drug-like properties.
“Trianni marks our fourth and largest strategic technology addition to date. With its technology and team, Trianni amplifies our capability to generate human antibodies and provides a strong foundation for developing increasingly powerful transgenic mouse technologies,” said Carl Hansen, Ph.D., CEO of AbCellera. “Trianni adds a key pillar to our platform, which now includes genetically engineered rodents, microfluidic single-cell screening, repertoire sequencing, AI-powered computation, and bispecific protein engineering. By integrating these technologies, we aim to provide our partners with access to a modern operating system that improves the speed and probability of success of antibody drug development.”
Trianni’s genetic engineering technology is a platform for developing humanized mice. The flagship Trianni Mouse® was designed to maximize immune responses, increase antibody diversity, and preserve natural maturation of fully human antibodies in rodents. The Trianni Mouse® is also a core platform that supports the rapid development of new mouse strains tailored to address the most challenging antibody discovery programs. Several next-generation humanized mice are currently being developed and when launched aim to provide partners with the following benefits:
- Generate multispecific antibodies and access difficult targets with the Heavy-Chain Only (HCO) Mouse, which expresses smaller, single domain antibodies that can reach target sites conventional IgG molecules cannot. HCO antibodies are ideally suited for applications in cell therapy and for bispecific and multispecific antibody therapeutics.
- Break immune tolerance with the All-Epitope Mouse, which generates robust immune responses against highly-conserved, high-value drug targets such as GPCRs and ion channels that are prevalent in multiple diseases and indications, including cardiovascular diseases, cancer, neurological diseases, inflammation, and pain.
- Target new epitopes with the DD Mouse, which has long CDR3 loops that can access “hidden” or recessed binding sites that are unreachable by conventional IgG molecules.
- Maximize efficiency with the Eazysort Mouse, which allows up-front enrichment of immune cells that recognize the target to focus discovery efforts on only high-value antibodies of interest.
About Trianni, Inc.
Trianni, Inc., an AbCellera company, specializes in antibody discovery technology using transgenic mice. Trianni’s lead technology, the Trianni Mouse®, is a next-generation platform enabling efficient generation of diverse, fully-human monoclonal antibodies. The Trianni transgenic platform leverages a novel approach to design made possible by advances in DNA synthesis and genomic engineering technology. Additional information about Trianni is available at www.trianni.com.
About AbCellera Biologics Inc.
AbCellera is a privately held technology company with an antibody discovery platform that searches, decodes, and analyzes natural immune systems to find antibodies that can be used to prevent and treat disease. AbCellera’s technology, which combines high-throughput microfluidics, hyper-scale data science, machine learning, bioinformatics, and genomics, identifies new drug candidates and aims to reduce the time it takes to bring treatments to the clinic. AbCellera's partners include leading biotechnology companies, global health organizations, and many of the top 10 biopharmaceutical companies. For more information, visit www.abcellera.com.
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