NEW YORK — Genomic analysis firm Dante Labs said on Friday that it has formed a drug discovery alliance with the Renato Dulbecco Foundation focused in the areas of cancer, COVID-19, and rare diseases.
According to New York City-based Dante, the foundation has licensed a library of billions of pronectin nanoantibodies and related intellectual property from biotech firm Protelica. Under the terms of their partnership, the foundation will use Dante's next-generation sequencing data analysis platform to identify nanoantibodies that can be used for a range of therapeutic applications, including the treatment of COVID-19 and orphan diseases.
Additional research and development activities will be outsourced to Twist Bioscience, Dante said. Financial and other terms of the partnership were not disclosed.
"I strongly believe that this collaboration will lead to the discovery of new pronectins that must be considered a next-generation medicine and will open the avenues for the treatment of still incurable diseases," Giuseppe Nistico, leader of the Renato Dulbecco Foundation, said in a statement.
In mid-2021, Dante Labs acquired UK-based cancer informatics firm Cambridge Cancer Genomics. Last month, the company agreed to refund certain customers for its COVID-19 and other PCR diagnostics following a business practice investigation by the UK's Competition and Markets Authority.