Antibody Engineering Xchange Europe
Antibody Engineering
- Drugging protein-protein interactions
- Conformational definition of target proteins with function-modifying antibodies
- Allosteric modulation of dynamics
- Fragment library design and screening against defined conformations
Vice President, Structural Biology
UCB
- Why do antibodies from animals dominate the commercial and clinical pipelines?
- What drives the selection of an antibody technology?
Vice President
Biologics Technologies & Development
Ferring
- What applications can NGS play in antibody engineering?
- What are the quantitative analytical tools that can be used for NGS antibody analysis?
- How can we use NGS to help design and evaluate antibody libraries?
- How can we use NGS to discover or engineer antibody lead candidates?
Senior Research Scientist
ETH Zurich
Antibody Engineering
- What are the primary selection criteria that are important for making an antibody-based drug?
- At what point during the discovery campaign should manufacturing developability be assessed?
- What do we keep and what needs to change to make effective antibody molecules?
Group Leader
Discovery Technology
Agenus Bio
Zorica Dragic leads Cell Line Development team in Novartis Biologics Center, responsible for the technical development of all manufacturing cell lines for monoclonal antibodies and therapeutic proteins from early development up to and including commercial stage.
With 12 years of experience in the Pharmaceutical industry, Zorica assumed different roles in biotechnology area. She led line function teams with the core expertise in the cell, process, and new technology development, but also led cross functional CMC teams as technical project lead, looking into technical and strategic aspects of early project pipeline. In her current role Zorica is leading team of motivated scientist at the interphase of discovery and development, assuring success of one of the fastest biologics pipelines in the industry.
- Why use a mammalian platform vs phage/yeast?
- How can we achieve a single copy per cell?
- What is the maximum library size achievable?
- Is full-length Ab discovery from a naïve library achieveable?
Chief Technology Officer
Fusion Antibodies
- What would you think will be the future success and what is your current focus on the “high hanging fruits”
- What are the hurdles for ADCs, bispecifics etc. (molecular formats and/or targets?)
- Opportunities of new therapeutic areas beyond the traditional ones (beyond inflammatory/autoimmune indications and cancer)?
Vice President
Biologics Research
Bayer
- How to choose an appropriate antibody modality? Bispecific, ADC, CAR-T, fragment, monotherapy, combinations
- The relevance/translation of animal models, transgenics, surrogates
- How to choose and evaluate antibody subclass?
Chief Scientific Officer
Carterra
Prior to joining Carterra as CSO in 2016, Yasmina Abdiche worked for twelve years at Pfizer-Rinat where she was a Research Fellow leading a bioanalytical team discovering therapeutic antibodies and served on Rinat’s leadership team and the governing committee for Pfizer’s Postdoctoral Program. She graduated from Oxford University with a PhD in Biological Chemistry and a Master’s degree in Chemistry, and did postdoctoral research at the University of Utah. Yasmina is co-inventor of fremanezumab, an anti-CGRP antibody set for US market approval in 2018 for chronic migraine and PF-06801591, a PD-1 inhibitor currently in PhI clinical trials for cancer immunotherapy.
- Cell line development is one of the critical enablers of “fast to human” clinical requirement imperative
- What are the key acceleration-enabling components of manufacturing cell line platforms
- Internal development vs. outsourcing
- Going non-monoclonal: Can the challenge create the opportunities?
- Calculated risks and how to mitigate them.
Head Cell Line Development
Novartis
Zorica Dragic leads Cell Line Development team in Novartis Biologics Center, responsible for the technical development of all manufacturing cell lines for monoclonal antibodies and therapeutic proteins from early development up to and including commercial stage.
With 12 years of experience in the Pharmaceutical industry, Zorica assumed different roles in biotechnology area. She led line function teams with the core expertise in the cell, process, and new technology development, but also led cross functional CMC teams as technical project lead, looking into technical and strategic aspects of early project pipeline. In her current role Zorica is leading team of motivated scientist at the interphase of discovery and development, assuring success of one of the fastest biologics pipelines in the industry.
Bispecific Antibodies
- From early research to clinical development
- Optimal building blocks for bispecific engineering
- What are the important selection criteria?
- Impact of bispecific formats on PK/PD
- What factors should be considered early on that have an impact on developability?
Head Engineered Protein Therapeutics
Sanofi
Ercole Rao received his PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Heidelberg. He has 17 years of industrial experience, 13 thereof spent in antibody discovery, research and development. Ercole heads a group for Protein Engineering at Sanofi with a focus on Multispecific Antibody Technologies. Since 2009 Ercole’s team moved 3 bispecific antibodies into clinical development.
- Balancing the arms of your bispecific. How to do you engage with both targets effectively in vivo. What affinity is optimal?
- In-format selections or in-format screening? Which is the more effective option for identifying lead bispecifics?
- Is the whole a sum of its parts? What are the rules for pairing antibodies together?
- Is it soluble? Is it stable? How to select a bispecific that can progress all the way through development.
- Is the development of a true plug-and-play system realistic in bispecific development?
Director, Display Technologies
Crescendo Biologics
Antibody Drug Conjugates
- What is a good ADC target?
- Patient selection and trial design
- What pre-clinical data is most predictive for robust activity in patients?
Site Head & Scientific Director
Oxford Biotherapeutics
- Do we need smaller-sized ADCs to aid tumour penetration?
- Do we need higher systemic payload concentrations to drive diffusion into solid tumours?
- How do we reconcile pharmacokinetics with tolerability if we use more payload or more potent payloads?
- How does target distribution affect our choice for solid tumour ADC targets?
Chief Executive & Science Officer
Antikor
Biopharma
Mahendra Deonarain studied at Imperial College and Cambridge University where he carried out PhD research into protein engineering. From 1997-2011 Dr Deonarain was a Principle Investigator and Reader in Antibody Technology at Imperial College, which led to some novel technologies being developed commercially. Mahendra now retains honorary links with Imperial College. He has published over 70 papers and patents in protein/antibody engineering/conjugates. In 2001, he co-founded PhotoBiotics to develop a form of targeted photodynamic therapy using antibody fragments optimized for bio-conjugation (OptiLink technology). This is now at Antikor Biopharma where he is CEO/CSO leading a team to develop the next-generation of antibody-fragment based ADCs for solid tumours based on OptiLink.
Cancer Immunotherapies
- How does CD3-TAA (tumor associate antigen) redirecting therapies compare to CD137-TAA costimulators in terms of effect and immune memory?
- How important is the valency of the multispecific antibody, both regarding the TAA-target and the T cell target?
- Role of receptor Density vs tumor specificity, with regards to safety and efficacy?
- Affinity and valency with regards to T cell activation and tumor penetration?
Vice President Discovery
Alligator Bioscience
Translation research
- How does CD3-TAA (tumor associate antigen) redirecting therapies compare to CD137-TAA costimulators in terms of effect and immune memory?
- How important is the valency of the multispecific antibody, both regarding the TAA-target and the T cell target?
- Role of receptor Density vs tumor specificity, with regards to safety and efficacy?
- Affinity and valency with regards to T cell activation and tumor penetration?
Vice President Discovery
Alligator Bioscience
Clinical Trials
- How have the IO agents affected the role of traditional clinical endpoints?
- What is the role of new classifications of tumor response in the development of IO agents?
- Do we need, and if yes, how can we increase the role of endpoints based Patient Reported Outcomes? – Do we need new endpoints in light of the increasing number of IO studies?
Senior Medical Director
Clinical Development
Novartis
- Too many early phase combinations to make the right decision for the further investment
- Limited tumour sample available for understanding the biology
- Random combinations rather than rationale combinations
Senior Medical Director
Roche
- Digital quantification of biomarkers for IO treatment response
- Integrated multi-omics to understand disease and drug MOA
- Big Data/AI for digital pathology, signature discovery including predictive biomarkers
- Visualizing TME heterogeneity and consequences for therapy
Head of Translational Research and IO
Definiens
Immunotherapies
- What are remaining challenges in manufacturing steps and how can they be solved?
- What is the best route to the market? Are there different strategies EU vs US?
- How to design the best clinical trials for allogeneic cellular immunotherapy products?
- How to supply your trials with Cell products? Identify current limitations.
Chief Scientific Officer
Glycostem
- Activation of strong auto-reactive tumor antigen-specific immune responses. Against the dogma?
- How mouse tumor models may or may not be helpful.
- Combination therapy with tumor-suppressing agents possible?
Founder & Chief Scientific Officer
OncoQR ML
- What do we know about mechanisms of acquired resistance to immunotherapy?
- Are there ways to prevent development of resistance to immunotherapy?
- In case of MHC class I loss, are there options for immune intervention against progressing tumors?
Vice President Oncology
Molecular Partners
Combination therapy
- Criteria for the combination of checkpoint inhibitors and other targeted therapies
- Implication on biomarker strategy and patient selection
- Cost-benefit for combination therapy
Director Immunotherapy
Erytech
- Do we understand enough about the mechanisms of anti-PD-1/PD-L1 resistance?
- What are rational combinations to overcome intrinsic and acquired resistance to close the opportunity space?
- Is there an opportunity for combining PD-1/PD-L1 agents in r/r patients?
Founder & Chief Scientific Officer
OncoQR ML
- Differential response versus amplification
- Patient stratification and or biomarker ID (molecular, preclinical modelling)
- Selecting/identifying complementary biology
- Methods for predicting response ahead of clinical testing
Head, Biopharma Business Development Europe
Mitra Biotech
- How can we enhance the benefit of combination therapies as a strategy to differentiate drug development pipelines from competitors?
- What can we learn from the data of several combination studies performed so far and how can this help us prioritize development of combination therapies?
- How to maximize combination therapy development in light of physiological challenges of the immune system and tumor microenvironment?
- How can we utilize the immune system’s varied response mechanisms to identify new pathways and combinations?
Director
Novartis Oncology
Immune Biomarkers
- Can blood tests replace tissue biopsies to guide immune checkpoint inhibitor treatment?
- What are pros and cons to assess blood-derived ctDNA?
- Can liquid biopsies predict checkpoint inhibitor response?
- Which challenges need to be overcome to increase acceptance of liquid biopsies in clinical practice?
Head of Biomarkers
Bayer