Research Collaboration on Antibody Technology

A research and license agreement has been announced by Abbott Laboratories (Abbott Park, UK, USA) and Domantis Limited (Cambridge, UK), whereby the two companies will collaborate on the identification and optimization of the domain antibody technology of Domantis for therapeutic products.

Under the terms of the agreement, Domantis will receive funding for collaborative research activities and license fees for technology access. If therapeutic products result from the collaboration or Abbott's use of the domain antibody technology, Domantis will also receive license fees and development milestones as well as royalties on
commercial sales.

Domain antibodies, or dAbs, are the smallest functional binding units of antibodies, consisting of the variable regions of either the human heavy (VH) or light (VL) chain. These molecules are less than one-tenth the size of a conventional antibody molecule. Domantis has created a range of very large and highly diverse libraries of domain antibodies, which it uses as a source of potent drug candidates that interact with targets of interest. In this way, Domantis seeks to combine the advantages of antibodies (enormous natural diversity and high specificity) with those of smaller compounds
(potential for lower manufacturing costs and multiple modes of delivery).

"Having access to novel new antibody technology will significantly strengthen our antibody discovery technology platform and therefore our capability to bring additional breakthrough antibody-derived therapies to patients,” said Alejandro Aruffo, Ph.D., president, Abbott Bioresearch Center and divisional vice president, Global Pharmaceutical Research and Development, Abbott Laboratories.




Related Links:
Abbott
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