Antibody Therapeutics Xchange
East Coast, Boston
May 16, 2022
Welcome to hubXchange’s East Coast Antibody Therapeutics Xchange 2022, bringing together executives from pharma and biotech to address and find solutions to the key issues faced in developing antibody therapeutics, through a series of roundtable discussions.
Discussion topics will cover Target Selection, Lead Identification & Optimization, Formats & Scaffolds, Bi/Multi-Specifics and Emerging Technologies.
Take advantage of this unique highly interactive meeting format designed for maximum engagement and collaboration with your peers.
Please note this is an In-Person meeting with a hybrid option to join virtually.
VENUE DETAILS: Hilton Boston Woburn Hotel, 2 Forbes Road, Woburn
Target Selection
Opening Address & Keynote: Rapid In Vivo Antibody Discovery with Broad Epitopic Diversity using Beacon-Based Single B Cell Workflow
Discovery of functional therapeutic monoclonal antibodies against GPCR and ion channels has been a challenge. We have developed an efficient in-vivo antibody discovery platform using our hyperimmune mice by streamlining Beacon-based single B cell screening, hybridoma screening, and downstream hit expansion workflow for deep repertoire mining and epitope diversity. A case study featuring a therapeutic antibody discovery campaign targeting a cell surface receptor using a single B cell workflow with broad epitopic diversity will be presented.
Director, Antibody Characterization, Abveris
Vishal (Vish) has extensive experience in the discovery and development of next generation biotherapeutics that would transform the lives of millions. Before joining Twist Bioscience, Vish worked in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals for 12 years where he supported discovery of monoclonal and bispecific antibodies for 100+ targets spanning Immunology, Inflammation, Oncology, Immuno-Oncology, Neuroscience, Cardiovascular, Skeletal, Metabolic, and Infectious diseases. His efforts resulted in three approved drugs – DUPIXENT®, LIBTAYO® and Evkeeza® and 20 clinical drug candidates.He earned his Ph.D. from Drexel University and proposed that the use of biparatopic EGFR antibodies would be a potent biotherapeutic for EGFR overexpressing tumors. He likes to share his findings with the scientific community and has 15 peer-reviewed papers. He considers publication as his way of giving back to the scientific community.
Considerations and challenges guiding target selection in the development of antibody-based
therapeutics
- What are the key criteria for selecting an antigen target? What considerations should be taken into account for disease-associated antigens?
- What are the pros and cons of targeting cell surface receptors vs. ligand targets? In the context of cancer, what are the pros and cons of targeting over-expressed self-antigens, cancer germline antigens, and neoantigens?
- What antibody parameters should be considered when selecting an antigen target? Antibody affinity? Epitope? Internalization rate? Other?
- How does therapeutic modality influence target selection? (i.e. ADC, CAR-T, T-cell engager, conventional mAb)
Senior Director, External Innovation, Janssen Pharmaceuticals
As a senior member of the global External Innovation Team, Gadi has overall strategic and operational responsibility for scouting and evaluation of external opportunities across all biologic drug modalities.
Gadi has over twenty years of experience in oncology R&D with an emphasis in preclinical antibody discovery. He has led academic alliances as well as industry partnerships throughout his career. Prior to joining Janssen, Gadi was a Senior Director at TESARO, where he led and directed biologics discovery efforts in immuno-oncology. Before TESARO, Gadi held roles of increasing responsibility at Amgen Fremont Inc. (formerly Abgenix Inc.), AstraZeneca, Pfizer, and Novartis.
Gadi received his B.S. in biochemistry from the University of California, Davis and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine. He completed his postdoctoral training at Stanford University in the Division of Immunology and Rheumatology. He has authored numerous research papers, reviews, as well as book chapters, and is a co-inventor on multiple patents.
Lead Identification & Optimization Topic Common challenges of antibody discovery against different types of targets
- In vivo vs in vitro vs combined approach
- Humanization vs transgenic humanized mice
- Different single B cell workflows vs hybridoma antibody fragment
- Discovery for emerging modalities such as CAR-based therapeutics and multispecifics
Senior Director, R&D, Abveris
As the Senior Director of R&D Abveris/Twist Bioscience, Colby provides scientific leadership for the team to guide decisions and develop innovative strategies for successful delivery of each unique project. Before Abveris, he graduated with a Ph. D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from Texas A&M and directed antibody discovery and engineering programs at both MassBiologics of the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Kanyos Bio.
Spotlight Presentation: Fit-for-Purpose Therapeutic Antibody Discovery Utilizing the AlivaMab® Mouse Platform
AlivaMab Discovery Services’ (ADS) antibody discovery workflows are optimized for fast and efficient drug discovery and development for both standard and next generation antibody formats. To ensure success of every antibody discovery campaign, we implement custom immunization and screening strategies tailored to each set of antibody design goals. In this talk, examples of fit-for-purpose strategies will be presented.
Vice President, Antibody Discovery, AlivaMab Discovery Services
Jane received her PhD from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and completed her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School. She has over a decade of experience in antibody discovery for biologics drug development using in vivo approaches. Prior to joining AlivaMab Discovery Services, Jane led the In Vivo Antibody Discovery team at AbbVie, where she introduced and implemented multiple technology platforms, including hybridoma automation and direct antibody cloning from human patient samples. Jane has led projects across diverse therapeutic areas and enabled antibody discovery campaigns resulting in several clinical candidate molecules.
- How can intratumoral myeloid cell heterogeneity best be deconvoluted to identify immunosuppressive subpopulations and therapeutic targets?
- Can targeting myeloid cells effectively address either primary or secondary resistance to current immunotherapies?
- Is repolarizing or depleting immunosuppressive myeloid cells more likely to have a therapeutic benefit?
- What myeloid cell-targeted therapies currently in clinical development show the most promise?
- Can myeloid-cell targeted therapies be effective as monotherapies, or are combination approaches necessary? If yes, how can the most effective combinations be identified?
Head of Exploratory Biology & External Innovation, HiFiBiO Therapeutics
Roshan Kumar is Senior Director of Head of Exploratory Biology & External Innovation at HiFiBiO Therapeutics, where his team works to identify novel immunomodulatory drug targets for the company’s internal pipeline. He previously worked to help develop the company’s single B cell screening microfluidic platform and apply it to discover antibacterial antibodies from patient samples. Roshan has more than 20 years experience in the study of complex biological systems, and received his PhD from the Scripps Research Institute and Bachelor’s degree from the California Institute of Technology. His postdoctoral studies were performed at the Whitehead Institute and Harvard Medical School.
- Utilizing flow cytometry as a highly versatile platform that offers increased accuracy in
identifying and measuring the binding of biotherapeutics to cellular target populations. - Highlighting how it can be used as an important tool for development and characterisation
of antibody therapeutics. - Harnessing flow based receptor occupancy (RO) assays to measure individual targets using
fluorescent tags to quantify bound and unbound receptors on specific cell populations for
preclinical development through to clinical trials. - To highlight various approaches for flow-based RO assessments, key preanalytical
considerations and validation criteria for these highly customisable assays.
Scientific Engagement Manager, Synexa
Nick is a medical scientist with experience in soluble biomarkers and lipidology. He completed his PhD in Medicine at the University of Cape Town, which focussed on exploring new novel lipid-based biomarkers of cardiovascular disease. Following post-doctoral experience in the department of Physiology at Stellenbosch University, Nick joined Synexa as a scientist in the soluble biomarkers lab where he was involved in developing and validating methods for unique client compounds as well as a serological method for SARS-CoV-2 antibody detection. Nick has published several peer-reviewed articles relating to both his PhD, post-doctoral research and work at Synexa. He is now part of the client services unit, assisting with outreach to clients, developing bespoke biomarker and analytical strategies and proposal generation.
Lead Identification & Optimization
Opening Address & Keynote: Rapid In Vivo Antibody Discovery with Broad Epitopic Diversity using Beacon-Based Single B Cell Workflow
Discovery of functional therapeutic monoclonal antibodies against GPCR and ion channels has been a challenge. We have developed an efficient in-vivo antibody discovery platform using our hyperimmune mice by streamlining Beacon-based single B cell screening, hybridoma screening, and downstream hit expansion workflow for deep repertoire mining and epitope diversity. A case study featuring a therapeutic antibody discovery campaign targeting a cell surface receptor using a single B cell workflow with broad epitopic diversity will be presented.
Director, Antibody Characterization, Abveris
Vishal (Vish) has extensive experience in the discovery and development of next generation biotherapeutics that would transform the lives of millions. Before joining Twist Bioscience, Vish worked in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals for 12 years where he supported discovery of monoclonal and bispecific antibodies for 100+ targets spanning Immunology, Inflammation, Oncology, Immuno-Oncology, Neuroscience, Cardiovascular, Skeletal, Metabolic, and Infectious diseases. His efforts resulted in three approved drugs – DUPIXENT®, LIBTAYO® and Evkeeza® and 20 clinical drug candidates.He earned his Ph.D. from Drexel University and proposed that the use of biparatopic EGFR antibodies would be a potent biotherapeutic for EGFR overexpressing tumors. He likes to share his findings with the scientific community and has 15 peer-reviewed papers. He considers publication as his way of giving back to the scientific community.
Choosing in vivo models and designing the studies to maximize relevance to humans
- How do we identify and develop in vivo models that will be most relevant, and when is the right time to invest in developing new models for a program?
- How do we assess the risk of using simpler, higher-throughput, and possibly less clinically relevant in vivo models during compound selection/optimization? Are there situations where in vivo pharmacology should not be used for compound selection?
- What are the most important comparators, benchmarks, and/or controls to include in your in vivo studies?
- What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned (the hard way!) about in vivo models or study design?
Vice President,
Biology, Mersana Therapeutics
Marc Damelin is Vice President and Head of Biology at Mersana Therapeutics, where he is focused on ADC discovery and development for oncology. Prior, he spent 10 years at Pfizer in the Oncology Research Unit, where he led ADC discovery teams and oversaw the ADC portfolio. He is the Editor of the book “Innovations for Next-Generation Antibody-Drug Conjugates” published by Springer in 2018.
Trends, challenges and opportunities for therapeutic antibody discovery
- Human antibody discovery platforms (in vivo and in vitro).
- Lessons learned so far – advantages and limitations
- Considerations for choosing optimal therapeutic antibody discovery platforms
- Current and future trends in antibody discovery platforms
Vice President, Antibody Discovery, AlivaMab Discovery Services
Jane received her PhD from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and completed her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School. She has over a decade of experience in antibody discovery for biologics drug development using in vivo approaches. Prior to joining AlivaMab Discovery Services, Jane led the In Vivo Antibody Discovery team at AbbVie, where she introduced and implemented multiple technology platforms, including hybridoma automation and direct antibody cloning from human patient samples. Jane has led projects across diverse therapeutic areas and enabled antibody discovery campaigns resulting in several clinical candidate molecules.
Spotlight Presentation: Fit-for-Purpose Therapeutic Antibody Discovery Utilizing the AlivaMab® Mouse Platform
AlivaMab Discovery Services’ (ADS) antibody discovery workflows are optimized for fast and efficient drug discovery and development for both standard and next generation antibody formats. To ensure success of every antibody discovery campaign, we implement custom immunization and screening strategies tailored to each set of antibody design goals. In this talk, examples of fit-for-purpose strategies will be presented.
Vice President, Antibody Discovery, AlivaMab Discovery Services
Jane received her PhD from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and completed her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School. She has over a decade of experience in antibody discovery for biologics drug development using in vivo approaches. Prior to joining AlivaMab Discovery Services, Jane led the In Vivo Antibody Discovery team at AbbVie, where she introduced and implemented multiple technology platforms, including hybridoma automation and direct antibody cloning from human patient samples. Jane has led projects across diverse therapeutic areas and enabled antibody discovery campaigns resulting in several clinical candidate molecules.
- How much target validation is necessary before working on a novel target?
- What are the best strategies for targeting proteins with poor expression or difficult structures?
- Which discovery approaches yield the highest diversity against difficult targets?
Executive Director, Discovery Technologies, Novartis
John got his Ph.D. from the Scripps Research Institute in 2003. Since then, John’s research has focused on using display technologies, immune approaches and an array of protein engineering approaches for antibody discovery and bi and multispecific antibody engineering at multiple companies – Genentech, Trubion, Emergent BioSolutions, and Novartis. John leads antibody discovery at NIBR in Cambridge, where they use a mix of display and immunization approaches coupled with high throughput screening to find and optimize antibodies for a variety of therapeutic modalities and indications.
• The largest functional Fab antibody library available
• Incorporates SpyDisplay, a new selection system based on SpyTag technology
• Presentation of the design, features, and data
R&D Team Leader, New Technologies, Bio-Rad Laboratories
Francisco Ylera leads the R&D team at Bio-Rad antibodies division, focusing on optimization of the monoclonal antibody generation platform. He took his Ph.D. at the Dept. of Biochemistry in Berlin (Germany), followed by a postdoc at Harvard Medical School (Boston, USA), before joining Roche for the development of a cell-free protein expression system. Since 2004, he has been at Bio-Rad. Prior to leading the R&D team, he worked for many years on customers’ antibody selections and characterizations, and internal R&D projects.
Antibody developability assessment in early-stage discovery screening
- How to incorporate developability assessment in early discovery screen?
- Should we focus on one or two methods in each complementary
assessment cluster? - Can developability assessments accurately predict failure of antibodies in
clinical stages? - Are there any differences in developability assessment on the antibodies
from in vivo vs. in vitro discovery platform?
Associate Director, Head Antibody & Protein Engineering, Morphic Therapeutic
Hua Wang is Associate Director/Head of Antibody Discovery and Engineering at Morphic
Therapeutic. She built the antibody group and oversees all biologic projects at Morphic
Therapeutic. Previously, she was Senior Scientist of Antibody Discovery group at Biogen and
spent six years at Genentech.
Formats & Scaffolds
Opening Address & Keynote: Rapid In Vivo Antibody Discovery with Broad Epitopic Diversity using Beacon-Based Single B Cell Workflow
Discovery of functional therapeutic monoclonal antibodies against GPCR and ion channels has been a challenge. We have developed an efficient in-vivo antibody discovery platform using our hyperimmune mice by streamlining Beacon-based single B cell screening, hybridoma screening, and downstream hit expansion workflow for deep repertoire mining and epitope diversity. A case study featuring a therapeutic antibody discovery campaign targeting a cell surface receptor using a single B cell workflow with broad epitopic diversity will be presented.
Director, Antibody Characterization, Abveris
Vishal (Vish) has extensive experience in the discovery and development of next generation biotherapeutics that would transform the lives of millions. Before joining Twist Bioscience, Vish worked in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals for 12 years where he supported discovery of monoclonal and bispecific antibodies for 100+ targets spanning Immunology, Inflammation, Oncology, Immuno-Oncology, Neuroscience, Cardiovascular, Skeletal, Metabolic, and Infectious diseases. His efforts resulted in three approved drugs – DUPIXENT®, LIBTAYO® and Evkeeza® and 20 clinical drug candidates.He earned his Ph.D. from Drexel University and proposed that the use of biparatopic EGFR antibodies would be a potent biotherapeutic for EGFR overexpressing tumors. He likes to share his findings with the scientific community and has 15 peer-reviewed papers. He considers publication as his way of giving back to the scientific community.
Fc engineering for improved biologics druggability and effector functions
- Fc Based therapeutics: Full IgG; Fc fusion proteins; Fc fragments
- Increase of physicochemical properties: CH2-CH3 structures; introduction of CC bonds; optimization on non-covalent interactions
- Modulation of effector functions; mutants; glycosylation; mitigation of immunogenicity
- In vivo models
Principal Research Scientist, Abbvie
Joel earned his PhD in Herve Fridman’s Lab at the Curie Institute (Paris FR) studying Fc gamma receptor glycosylation and FcγRIIB ectopic expression by metastatic melanoma. For postdoctoral training, he joined Betty Diamond’s Lab at Einstein School of Medicine (Bronx, NY) and then Columbia University (NYC, NY) where he studied how sex hormones promote the break of B cell tolerance in lupus. In 2015, he joined Abbvie as Sr Scientist, working on Fc-Fc Receptors biology.
Choosing the right platform for developability optimization
- How to optimize antibody sequence without introducing unnatural mutations?
- How to thoroughly explore natural antibody sequence space around your lead?
- Humanizing and optimizing your lead at the same time – pitfalls?
- How do you exclude potential developability dipeptide motifs
Manager, Protein Process Development, Twist Biopharma
As Manager of IgG Production at Twist Biopharma, Denise leads the team responsible for producing Twist’s New High Throughput Antibody Product, a gene-to-antibody production platform that enables customers to turn candidate DNA sequences into purified antibodies for therapeutic discovery and screening applications. Prior to Twist, she worked at Greenlight Biosciences, where she led the effort to develop and launch an HTP platform for RNA production and purification. She graduated with a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from Brandeis University.
Spotlight Presentation: Fit-for-Purpose Therapeutic Antibody Discovery Utilizing the AlivaMab® Mouse Platform
AlivaMab Discovery Services’ (ADS) antibody discovery workflows are optimized for fast and efficient drug discovery and development for both standard and next generation antibody formats. To ensure success of every antibody discovery campaign, we implement custom immunization and screening strategies tailored to each set of antibody design goals. In this talk, examples of fit-for-purpose strategies will be presented.
Vice President, Antibody Discovery, AlivaMab Discovery Services
Jane received her PhD from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and completed her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School. She has over a decade of experience in antibody discovery for biologics drug development using in vivo approaches. Prior to joining AlivaMab Discovery Services, Jane led the In Vivo Antibody Discovery team at AbbVie, where she introduced and implemented multiple technology platforms, including hybridoma automation and direct antibody cloning from human patient samples. Jane has led projects across diverse therapeutic areas and enabled antibody discovery campaigns resulting in several clinical candidate molecules.
Increasing the therapeutic index of Ab therapeutics – shielding and other strategies
- Is paratope masking an effective strategy to increase antibody therapeutic index? Does this strategy reduce on-target, off-tumor effects while preserving on-target, on-tumor activity?
- Are matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) the best enzymes to remove paratope blocks? What other constituents of the tumor microenvironment (TME) could be used to remove paratope blocks?
- Beside paratope blocking, what other strategies could be deployed to effect tumor site-selective paratope activation? ATP is being used by STA551 as a TME-selective binding co-factor; could antibodies be raised that use other tumor site-selective co-factors for binding and what would those co-factors be?
Associate
Director, Go Therapeutics
Kostadin Petrov is an Associate Director at GO Therapeutics, which develops TCBs and CAR-Ts for treatment of solid tumors with aberrant, cancer-specific glycosylation; at GO, he splits his time between the bench and office, heading cell biology, leading in vitro evaluation of therapeutic candidates, and contributing to business development. Kostadin received his PhD in cell biology from Harvard University, where he studied the biochemistry and cell biology of Hedgehog signaling.
- In silico and in vitro immunogenicity assessment, test early to avoid surprises later on
- Immunogenicity testing challenges with multi-specific therapeutics
- Example data of the MHC Class II associated peptide proteomics assay
- Comprehensive risk assessment plan
Lead Scientist, ImmunXperts
hibaut holds a Master’s degree in Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular biology from the University of Liège. He received his PhD (2012-2016) at the GIGA research center in Liège, where he acquired a strong experience in the immunology field, working on dendritic cells and T cells interactions. During this period, he also developed an in-depth knowledge of flow cytometry. He joined ImmunXperts as a Senior Scientist at the beginning of 2017.
What are the key challenges and opportunities in developing efficient T-cell engagers /chimeric antigen receptors (CAR) for solid tumors?
- How can we incorporate safety, efficacy and target heterogeneity characteristics in our T-cell engager/CAR designs?
- What are the key design elements in generating next Gen CAR-T/CAR-NK ?
- What are the characteristics of nextGen T-cell engagers?
Principal Scientist, Takeda
Sarav Narayanan is currently leading cell therapy programs at Takeda, supporting binder strategy, characterization and developability. His expertise in protein analytics and antibody discovery combined with years of experience in supporting immunology research impacts Takeda’s Immuno-oncology programs. Prior to joining Takeda, Sarav was a scientist at biologics drug discovery group at Biogen and led Immunology research programs. He successfully transitioned molecules to development, out-licensed to partners and to clinic. Sarav Narayanan received PhD in biochemistry from TU-Munich, Germany and completed his postdoctoral research in the field of membrane protein biochemistry as a Harvard-Lefler postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School.
Bi/Multi-Specifics
Opening Address & Keynote: Rapid In Vivo Antibody Discovery with Broad Epitopic Diversity using Beacon-Based Single B Cell Workflow
Discovery of functional therapeutic monoclonal antibodies against GPCR and ion channels has been a challenge. We have developed an efficient in-vivo antibody discovery platform using our hyperimmune mice by streamlining Beacon-based single B cell screening, hybridoma screening, and downstream hit expansion workflow for deep repertoire mining and epitope diversity. A case study featuring a therapeutic antibody discovery campaign targeting a cell surface receptor using a single B cell workflow with broad epitopic diversity will be presented.
Director, Antibody Characterization, Abveris
Vishal (Vish) has extensive experience in the discovery and development of next generation biotherapeutics that would transform the lives of millions. Before joining Twist Bioscience, Vish worked in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals for 12 years where he supported discovery of monoclonal and bispecific antibodies for 100+ targets spanning Immunology, Inflammation, Oncology, Immuno-Oncology, Neuroscience, Cardiovascular, Skeletal, Metabolic, and Infectious diseases. His efforts resulted in three approved drugs – DUPIXENT®, LIBTAYO® and Evkeeza® and 20 clinical drug candidates.He earned his Ph.D. from Drexel University and proposed that the use of biparatopic EGFR antibodies would be a potent biotherapeutic for EGFR overexpressing tumors. He likes to share his findings with the scientific community and has 15 peer-reviewed papers. He considers publication as his way of giving back to the scientific community.
- Clean targeting – how clean is clean enough?
- SNIPER (2-receptor) approach to targeting tumor cell
- Tumor escape and heterogeneity
- Physics of engagement – how important is geometry and flexibility?
Vice President, Innovation & Strategy, Invenra
Jonathan Davis is Vice President of Innovation and Strategy at Invenra, where he brings over 20 years of experience in industry, focused on innovative protein and antibody engineering, bispecific and multispecific antibody platform development, and drug discovery in a wide range of therapeutic areas. Prior to joining Invenra, Jonathan has held positions at Bristol-Myers Squibb, where he worked on all aspects of biologic drug design, including successfully designing a trispecific HIV biotherapeutic, and EMD Serono, where he developed novel biologic drug platforms. Previous to his industry jobs, Jonathan was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School, and earned a Ph.D. in Biophysics from Univ. of Cal. San Francisco and a bachelor’s degrees in music and cello from Reed College and San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Spotlight Presentation: Fit-for-Purpose Therapeutic Antibody Discovery Utilizing the AlivaMab® Mouse Platform
AlivaMab Discovery Services’ (ADS) antibody discovery workflows are optimized for fast and efficient drug discovery and development for both standard and next generation antibody formats. To ensure success of every antibody discovery campaign, we implement custom immunization and screening strategies tailored to each set of antibody design goals. In this talk, examples of fit-for-purpose strategies will be presented.
Vice President, Antibody Discovery, AlivaMab Discovery Services
Jane received her PhD from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and completed her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School. She has over a decade of experience in antibody discovery for biologics drug development using in vivo approaches. Prior to joining AlivaMab Discovery Services, Jane led the In Vivo Antibody Discovery team at AbbVie, where she introduced and implemented multiple technology platforms, including hybridoma automation and direct antibody cloning from human patient samples. Jane has led projects across diverse therapeutic areas and enabled antibody discovery campaigns resulting in several clinical candidate molecules.
- When conventional antibody discovery techniques fail, what do you do?
- Can your library of polyclonal antibody reagents be the fuel for your next discovery campaign?
- Can you complement your existing programs with serum proteomics?
Director, International Business Development, Rapid Novor
Anthony has been heading the business development at Rapid Novor for nearly 5 years, merging his previous 8 years of experience in the business roles with a strong passion for biomedical research, stemming from his training in biomedical engineering. His current efforts are focused on the growth of the REpAb™and NovorIg™ platforms with pharmaceutical and biotech companies globally. His partnerships are focused on using REpAb in patients or animal models to sequence monoclonal antibodies from polyclonal sera, as well as immune system profiling using NovorIg, the team’s NGS based analysis to monitor the relative quantity of specific antibodies over time. Anthony’s a maker and in his spare time takes advantage of the Toronto HackLab to do biological research and other engineering projects.
Developability of multispecifics
- Multi-specific formats
o Symmetric vs asymmetric
o Fragments vs IgG like - Challenges associated with:
o Expression and chain association
o Purification
o Molecular stability
o Analytical complexities
o Formulation
Senior Director & Head, Cell Engineering & Early Development, Janssen
Partha Chowdhury is Senior Director and Head of Cell Engineering and Early Development at Janssen. Prior to this he was Senior Director Biologics Research in Sanofi and Head of the Antibody Discovery group in the US hub. He has been involved with different aspects of therapeutic antibody discovery, engineering, technology development including bi-specific design and translation of molecules into the clinic for more than 20 years. Focusing on a variety of platforms, Partha and his group have addressed and published on some of the key problems of antibody drug development technologies and in engineering them for greater translational success. Prior to Sanofi, Partha had held various positions within MedImmune, Human Genome Sciences and The NIH.
Emerging Technologies
Opening Address & Keynote: Rapid In Vivo Antibody Discovery with Broad Epitopic Diversity using Beacon-Based Single B Cell Workflow
Discovery of functional therapeutic monoclonal antibodies against GPCR and ion channels has been a challenge. We have developed an efficient in-vivo antibody discovery platform using our hyperimmune mice by streamlining Beacon-based single B cell screening, hybridoma screening, and downstream hit expansion workflow for deep repertoire mining and epitope diversity. A case study featuring a therapeutic antibody discovery campaign targeting a cell surface receptor using a single B cell workflow with broad epitopic diversity will be presented.
Director, Antibody Characterization, Abveris
Vishal (Vish) has extensive experience in the discovery and development of next generation biotherapeutics that would transform the lives of millions. Before joining Twist Bioscience, Vish worked in Regeneron Pharmaceuticals for 12 years where he supported discovery of monoclonal and bispecific antibodies for 100+ targets spanning Immunology, Inflammation, Oncology, Immuno-Oncology, Neuroscience, Cardiovascular, Skeletal, Metabolic, and Infectious diseases. His efforts resulted in three approved drugs – DUPIXENT®, LIBTAYO® and Evkeeza® and 20 clinical drug candidates.He earned his Ph.D. from Drexel University and proposed that the use of biparatopic EGFR antibodies would be a potent biotherapeutic for EGFR overexpressing tumors. He likes to share his findings with the scientific community and has 15 peer-reviewed papers. He considers publication as his way of giving back to the scientific community.
Improving upon antibody discovery R&D outputs and timelines by applying AI and omics
- How can AI and omics support wet lab antibody discovery? Can it/will it replace it in the future?
- Which antibody discovery pain points/inefficiencies could best be improved by AI technologies now and in the future?
- What will antibody discovery look like in 10, 20, 50 years?
Vice President, Client Relations, ImmunoPrecise
Barry Duplantis serves as Vice President of Client Relations for ImmunoPrecise Antibodies and is responsible for managing and coordinating all sales- related activities. He is a scientific entrepreneur and business development specialist with over 10 years experience in the commercial application of drug and vaccine discovery platforms. Prior to his appoint to VP of Client Relations he served as the Director of Client Relations for ImmunoPrecise Antibodies (Canada) and was the founder and CEO of DuVax Vaccine and Reagents. Barry obtained his Ph.D. from the Department of Microbiology and Biochemistry at the University of Victoria in 2012 with a focus on intracellular pathogenesis and vaccine development.
Spotlight Presentation: Fit-for-Purpose Therapeutic Antibody Discovery Utilizing the AlivaMab® Mouse Platform
AlivaMab Discovery Services’ (ADS) antibody discovery workflows are optimized for fast and efficient drug discovery and development for both standard and next generation antibody formats. To ensure success of every antibody discovery campaign, we implement custom immunization and screening strategies tailored to each set of antibody design goals. In this talk, examples of fit-for-purpose strategies will be presented.
Vice President, Antibody Discovery, AlivaMab Discovery Services
Jane received her PhD from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology and completed her post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School. She has over a decade of experience in antibody discovery for biologics drug development using in vivo approaches. Prior to joining AlivaMab Discovery Services, Jane led the In Vivo Antibody Discovery team at AbbVie, where she introduced and implemented multiple technology platforms, including hybridoma automation and direct antibody cloning from human patient samples. Jane has led projects across diverse therapeutic areas and enabled antibody discovery campaigns resulting in several clinical candidate molecules.
Poster Session: In vivo VHH discovery workflow based on immunized alpaca and rapid beacon-based single B cell screening
VHH has demonstrated tremendous promise as a versatile building block for antibody-based therapeutics, multispecifics, and cell-based biologics due to their typically higher affinity and better access to hidden epitopes on cell surface targets than conventional IgG molecules. Major advancements in critical tools have improved antibody discovery by providing robust and thorough analysis of target specificity, function, and developability earlier in the drug discovery process. Effective integration of these technologies can bolster the VHH discovery process and facilitate lead candidate selection for novel therapeutic modalities against traditionally challenging targets.
Director, Business Development, Abveris
Ryan is a graduate of the Harvard Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and hire #1 at Abveris. Ryan consults across diverse antibody discovery projects, bridging science and business development.
Next-generation platforms – Utilizing combinations of invitro, in vivo and in silico methods
- How can we couple high-throughput antibody discovery methods with functional assays in a single step?
- What are the next steps to take in silico biologics discovery from infancy to practical applications?
- How can we incorporate more intricate logic in biotherapeutics towards more efficacious therapeutics?
Associate Director, Antibody Discovery, Novartis
Hayretin’s background is in directed evolution and structural bioinformatics. In academia, he has worked on the interface of synthetic biology, protein engineering and computational biology developing protein switches to control cellular behavior. In the past, Hayretin has worked at Pfizer oncology where he led an antibody discovery and engineering team. Most recently, he had joined Elanco Animal Health where he and his group built Elanco’s biotherapeutic discovery and engineering engine. At Novartis, Hayretin leads a biotherapeutics discovery group working on projects across various disease areas.