IONTAS Limited (IONTAS), a leader in the discovery and optimisation of fully human antibodies, announced today that it has signed an agreement with Sanofi to discover antibodies using IONTAS’ proprietary Mammalian Display Technology.

IONTAS’ platform allows for the construction of large libraries of monoclonal cell lines each displaying a different IgG-formatted antibody on the cell surface. Novel binders can be isolated from the libraries by using fluorescence-activated cell sorting on the basis of antigen binding. Importantly, the system also has the potential to identify clones with development liabilities, such as self-aggregation, during the initial discovery phase.

Dr John McCafferty, CEO at IONTAS, commented: “Historically the consideration of developability issues have been addressed after selection of drug lead molecules. Our Mammalian Display Platform not only allows direct screening of millions of clones for binding affinity and specificity, but also has the potential for early identification of developability issues such as product precipitation. Such issues can derail product development resulting in significant losses in time and money.”

ENDS

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About IONTAS www.iontas.co.uk

IONTAS is a biotechnology company focused on antibody discovery and cutting-edge technology development. IONTAS offers services for antibody discovery using Phage Display Technology; and the supply of bespoke phage display libraries. In addition, IONTAS has developed proprietary antibody discovery platforms including Mammalian Display where full IgG antibodies are expressed in the context of a mammalian cell thereby allowing selection based on function, stability, expression and developability; and, KnotBody technology which facilitates the targeting of antibodies to ion channels, GPCRs and proteases.