AbCellera and IGM Biosciences Announce Multi-Year Antibody Discovery Collaboration
September 24 2020 - 4:01PM
AbCellera and IGM Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: IGMS), announced today
that they have entered into a multi-year, multi-target strategic
research collaboration and license agreement to facilitate the
discovery and development of novel IgM antibodies. AbCellera will
generate panels of antibodies for multiple therapeutic targets
identified by IGM using its
full-stack, AI-powered antibody discovery technology, and IGM will
have the rights to develop and commercialize the novel antibodies
resulting from this collaboration. Financial terms of the
collaboration were not disclosed.
“We believe that AbCellera’s technology will assist us in
rapidly identifying the best antibodies against a large number of
agonist targets, as well as other historically difficult targets,
for both oncology and immunology applications,” said Fred
Schwarzer, CEO of IGM Biosciences. “Engineered IgM and IgA
antibodies may be able to overcome some of the limitations of the
current IgG-based therapeutics, and this partnership demonstrates
the depth of our commitment to ensuring that the potential of our
IgM and IgA technology platform is fully realized in areas of high
unmet medical need.”
“We believe partnerships like these, which connect breakthrough
science with the teams and technologies needed to move forward
quickly, are essential in expediting new therapeutic approaches
against complex diseases,” said Carl Hansen, Ph.D., President and
CEO of AbCellera. “We look forward to working closely with IGM’s
innovative team with the goal of accelerating their discovery
efforts against high-value disease targets.”
AbCellera sources, searches, decodes and analyzes natural immune
responses to identify antibodies for next-generation therapeutics.
A modern operating system for antibody discovery, the platform
integrates patented and proprietary technologies to advance the
development of existing and new biological modalities, from
monoclonal, multi-specific, and single-domain antibodies, to
bioconjugates, gene-encoded biologics, and cell therapies. IGM’s
proprietary platform expands upon the inherent characteristics of
IgM and IgA antibodies and is designed to enable the rapid
development of engineered therapeutic antibodies. IGM’s technology
allows it to create IgM and IgA antibodies with higher affinity and
avidity than naturally occurring IgM and IgA antibodies,
and is designed to overcome the historical difficulties in
recombinantly expressing and manufacturing IgM and IgA
antibodies.
About AbCellera
Biologics Inc.AbCellera is a privately held
technology company with an antibody discovery platform that
searches 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 drugs 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.
About IGM Biosciences, Inc.Headquartered in
Mountain View, California, IGM Biosciences is a clinical-stage
biotechnology company focused on creating and developing engineered
IgM antibodies. Since 2010, IGM Biosciences has worked to overcome
the manufacturing and protein engineering hurdles that have limited
the therapeutic use of IgM antibodies. Through its efforts, IGM
Biosciences has created a proprietary IgM technology platform for
the development of IgM antibodies for those clinical indications
where their inherent properties may provide advantages as compared
to IgG antibodies.
IGM Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking
StatementsThis press release contains forward-looking
statements, including statements relating to IGM’s plans,
expectations and forecasts and to future events. Such
forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the
potential of, and expectations regarding, the collaboration with
AbCellera; the nature and scope of such collaboration; the
capabilities of the Company’s technology, its IgM and IgA
technology platform and AbCellera’s technology, both generally and
specifically with respect to discovery, development, and
manufacture of antibodies; the potential safety and efficacy of
such antibodies; and statements by IGM’s CEO and AbCellera’s
President and CEO. Such statements are subject to numerous
important factors, risks and uncertainties that may cause actual
events or results to differ materially, including but not limited
to: termination of the collaboration arrangement; IGM’s ability to
demonstrate the safety and efficacy of any antibodies developed in
connection with the collaboration; IGM’s ability to successfully
manufacture such antibodies; IGM’s ability to successfully and
timely advance any antibodies through preclinical studies and
clinical trials; the risk that all necessary regulatory approvals
cannot be obtained; the risk that the potential benefits of the
collaboration and these efforts do not outweigh their costs;
potential delays and disruption resulting from the COVID-19
pandemic and governmental responses to the pandemic on the
collaboration and related efforts; IGM’s early stages of clinical
drug development; risks related to the use of engineered IgM
antibodies, which is a novel and unproven therapeutic approach;
IGM’s ability to obtain additional capital to finance its
operations, if needed; uncertainties related to the projections of
the size of patient populations suffering from the diseases IGM is
targeting; IGM’s ability to obtain, maintain and protect its
intellectual property rights; developments relating to IGM’s
competitors and its industry, including competing product
candidates and therapies; general economic and market conditions;
and other risks and uncertainties, including those more fully
described in IGM’s filings with the Securities and Exchange
Commission (“SEC”), including IGM’s Annual Report on Form 10-K
filed with the SEC on March 26, 2020, IGM’s Quarterly Report on
Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on August 6, 2020 and in IGM’s future
reports to be filed with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements
contained in this press release speak only as of the date hereof,
and IGM specifically disclaims any obligation to update any
forward-looking statement, except as required by law.
AbCellera Contacts:
MediaJessica Yingling,
Ph.D. media@abcellera.com+1.236.521.6774
Business DevelopmentKevin Heyries,
Ph.D.bd@abcellera.com+1.604.559.9005
IGM Biosciences Contact:
Argot PartnersDavid
Pittsigmbio@argotpartners.com+1.212.600.1902
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