Canadian-based biotechnology company AbCellera Biologics has entered into its third antibody discovery collaboration with US-based biotechnology company MassBiologics of the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
Funded by the Defence Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA), the new collaboration aims at addressing the fast-growing, unmet global health threat caused by the multidrug resistant bacteria, Klebsiella pneumonia.
The Klebsiella pneumonia bacteria is one of the major reasons that causes hospital-acquired (nosocomial) infections across the world.
AbCellera will apply its single-cell antibody discovery platform in a bid to identify panels of antibody candidates against Klebsiella pneumoniae directly from human volunteers.
AbCellera chief executive officer and co-founder Carl Hansen said: “AbCellera’s technology has the throughput, speed and capacity to deeply screen natural human antibody responses to these pathogens.
“We are pleased at the opportunity to expand our collaboration with MassBiologics, and believe this work will further demonstrate the strength of our approach for rapid human antibody discovery, immune profiling, and vaccine development.”
The current partnership between AbCellera Biologics and MassBiologics builds on the successes of two earlier DARPA-funded collaborations between the two biotechnology companies.
The collaborations led to the discovery of effective antibodies for potential therapeutics to enterotoxigenic E. coli and Ebola virus.
AbCellera is a privately-held company that provides advanced technologies for the discovery and development of monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapies directly from natural immune cells.
MassBiologics of the University of Massachusetts Medical School is the only publicly owned, non-profit FDA-licensed producer of vaccines and other biologic products in the US.