NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Twist Bioscience and Pandion Therapeutics plan to use Twist's antibody optimization platform to develop therapeutics for autoimmune and inflammatory disease, the companies said today.
The firms did not disclose financial details of the agreement.
Twist "has a highly differentiated capability to optimize antibodies for many attributes including affinity, expression, solubility, half-life, immunogenicity, druggability, and processability," Anthony Coyle, co-founder and CEO of Pandion, said in a statement.
The antibody optimization platform makes use of Twist's high-throughput oligonucleotide synthesis technology to generate an antibody library.
Pandion is a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based biotech company that was founded in 2017 and is focused on developing a pipeline of antibody therapeutics.
Last week, Twist announced a separate strategic collaboration with LakePharma, a contract research, development and manufacturing organization (CRDMO) for biologics, to offer antibody discovery and development services to pharmaceutical and biotech customers.
Under the terms of that deal, LakePharma will offer Twist's antibody optimization platform as a service to its customers while Twist will have access to LakePharma's discovery and development services.
Aside from its collaborations with Pandion and LakePharma, Twist is also working with Vanderbilt University Medical Center to discover and design antibody therapeutics against potential pandemics such as Zika virus.
Early this year, Twist CEO Emily Leproust said that drug discovery, harnessing its ability to make large antibody libraries, would be a focus of the company.