SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AnaptysBio, Inc., a privately-held therapeutic antibody company, today announced that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has extended its contract with AnaptysBio to generate additional high affinity thermally stable antibodies for biodefense applications. This extension was awarded based upon the successful completion by AnaptysBio of milestones during the first year of the contract.
Originally signed in 2010, AnaptysBio’s contract with DARPA, a U.S. Department of Defense agency, is focused upon generating antibodies that could be used in antibody-based biosensors to detect bioterror threats.
AnaptysBio’s proprietary SHM-XEL platform uniquely permits optimization of multiple properties, including thermal stability, expression, cross-reactivity and functional activity, in parallel with affinity improvement using the natural process of somatic hypermutation (SHM). Aside from biodefense applications, SHM-XEL is useful in improving the convenience and shelf-life of therapeutic antibodies through increased thermal stability.
“We are pleased to extend our contractual relationship with DARPA,” said James Topper, executive chairman of AnaptysBio. “The milestones achieved under this project demonstrate our ability to simultaneously optimize Abs for affinity and thermal stability.”
About AnaptysBio
Founded in 2005, AnaptysBio, Inc. is a privately-held company focused on the generation of antibody therapeutics, and the leader in the use of somatic hypermutation (SHM) for antibody discovery and optimization. SHM is the body’s natural process for generating potent antibodies. The Company’s SHM-XEL™ platform couples SHM with mammalian cell display to generate antibodies for therapeutic applications through an iterative process of natural evolution and high-throughput selection under controlled conditions – a process that has been referred to as “naturalizing” antibodies. This versatile platform can be used for both discovery of new antibodies and optimization of existing antibodies to generate candidates with desired properties for therapeutic applications. AnaptysBio has established broad intellectual property around the use of SHM, and is currently building a pipeline of novel therapeutic antibody product candidates. Major investors in AnaptysBio include founding investor Avalon Ventures, as well as Alloy Ventures, Frazier Healthcare Ventures, and Novo A/S. For more information, visit www.anaptysbio.com.