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Twist Bioscience, SomaLogic Partner on Antibodies, Target Discovery

NEW YORK – Twist Bioscience and SomaLogic announced on Wednesday a partnership to discover novel therapeutic targets and antibodies.

Under the terms of the agreement, Twist plans to identify antibodies against targets coming out of SomaLogic's SomaScan proteomics platform. Financial and other details of the partnership were not disclosed.

"Having access to the SomaScanplatform provides a rich source of clinically relevant biomarkers in diverse therapeutic areas, where we can then take those targets and discover potent antibodies for the treatment of disease," Emily Leproust, Twist's CEO and cofounder, said in a statement. "We intend to use the antibodies discovered for our internal pipeline, moving the most promising candidates through preclinical development and then potentially outlicensing [them] to a partner."

South San Francisco, California-based Twist manufactures synthetic DNA, including genes, capture probes for targeted next-generation sequencing library preparation assays, and antibody libraries for drug discovery and development.

SomaLogic, a Boulder, Colorado-based firm, has developed reagents to measure as many as 7,000 proteins in patient blood samples. In March, the company announced it would go public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, a transaction that is expected to close this quarter.

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