Antibody Therapeutics Xchange
Europe
November 30, 2021

Welcome to hubXchange’s European Antibody Therapeutics Xchange 2021, 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, Antibody Strategies Driving Cell Therapies 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 now a fully VIRTUAL meeting.

Target Selection

Time

Titles and Bullets

Facilitator

8:00 – 8:30am

Registration

8:30 – 9:00am

Opening Address & Keynote: DNA Aptamers as a Promising Alternative for Analytical and Therapeutic Applications

Daniel Fologea

Adjunct Scientist, Sapidyne Instruments & Professor of Physics, Boise State University
Sapidyne Instruments

Daniel Fologea’s research interests are focused on biophysical characterization of molecular interactions, transport of ions and molecules through artificial and natural membrane systems, and investigations on ligand-membrane interactions. Such fundamental processes are essential components of the molecular machineries responsible for cell functionality in health and disease. Understanding, harnessing and controlling these biological aspects is anticipated to open novel avenues for development of drugs, artificial carriers for targeted and controlled drug delivery at precise locations in the human body, and adjuvant therapy strategies intended to prevent and mitigate bacterial and viral infections.

9:05 – 10:05am

Strategies for GPCR-targeted discovery

VLPs, nanodiscs, and other formats for GPCR antigen presentation: what works, and for which applications?
Immunisation approach: choice of species, and of B cell screening technologies.
Display-based technologies: phage, yeast, mammalian and others.
Screening for functional properties of anti-GPCR antibodies.

Joe Illingworth

Chief Scientific Officer
DJS Antibodies

Joe Illingworth is the Chief Scientific Officer and Founder at DJS Antibodies. The company has a preclinical pipeline in the inflammatory disease space, with a first-in-class mAb in IND-enabling studies, an anti-GPCR bispecific in late candidate selection studies, and our unique HEPTAD technology which enables the discovery of new pipeline assets. Joe is currently overseeing work involving a range of anti-GPCR antibody-discovery approaches, lead optimisation including affinity maturation, as well as downstream pharmacology, translational and developability studies.

10:10 – 10:40am

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

10:40 – 11:10am

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

11:10 – 11:20am

Morning Refreshment Break

11:20am – 12:20pm

Including proteins in antibody discovery with polyclonal antibody sequencing

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?

Anthony Stajduhar

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.

12:20 – 1:20pm

Networking Lunch Break

1:20 – 1:50pm

Spotlight Presentation – There’s So Much More Than Binding – An Update on Customized Solutions for Antibody Discovery with Challenging Target Product Profiles

Specific requirements have to be met for the discovery of antibodies with challenging Target Product Profiles (TPPs). AbCheck has developed a technology to efficiently meet these requirements for e.g. functional antibodies or antibodies against targets with high homology. Our novel, tailored microfluidics technology is based on high throughput functional sorting of immune plasma cell repertoires at single cell level.

Volker Lang

Managing Director
AbCheck

Volker Lang has over 20 years’ experience in development and commercialization of biotechnology products, encompassing basic research, R&D, BD & licensing, commercial operations and management. Before joining AbCheck, Volker served as CBO of Affimed Therapeutics AG (now Affimed N.V.), AbCheck’s parent company, and held management positions at Scil Technology GmbH, where he successfully partnered the company’s technology portfolio with two major pharmaceutical companies, and at Pieris AG, where he successfully closed key strategic partnership deals. Prior to Pieris, Volker served as COO at Cosmix GmbH and as Biotech Manager at Fresenius Kabi AG. Volker holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Braunschweig, Germany.

1:55 – 2:55pm

Antibody target selection challenges: splicing, multimeric complexes and glycosylation

Identification of relevant isoforms or splice variants for antibody generation – Canonical or disease-associated?
Choice of expression systems – Prokaryotic vs Eukaryotic and the role of post-translational modifications in antibody discovery.
Recombinant protein quality control – is functional analysis essential?

Michael Mullin

Group Leader, Protein Technologies
GlaxoSmithKline

Michael Mullin is an experienced molecular biologist and protein engineer with over 11 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Michael gained his Ph.D. at Queen’s University Belfast studying ligand-receptor interactions using phage display. He joined GSK in 2010 within the antibody engineering team and has experience of drug development with respect to challenging target classes, GPCRs and ion channels to support antibody discovery. He is currently leading the Protein Technologies group which focuses on developing novel high-throughput technologies for recombinant protein secretion/expression and purification.

3:00 – 3:30pm

1-2-1 Meetings

3:30 – 4:00pm

1-2-1 Meetings

4:00 – 4:10pm

Afternoon Refreshments

4:10 – 4:40pm

Poster Session: LEAD IDENTIFICATION & OPTIMISATION topic – Immunosuppressive myeloid cell targeting Semaphorin 4D antibody for cancer immunotherapy

Immunosuppressive myeloid cells infiltration in tumor microenvironment causes resistance to cancer immunotherapy. Targeting immunosuppressive myeloid compartment is considered to be a promising approach for cancer immunotherapy and can overcome resistance to cancer immunotherapy. Overexpression of Semaphorin 4D (SEMA4D) has been frequently observed in head and neck cancer, as well as many others such as prostate, colon, breast, and lung cancers. SEMA4D drives immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment through the inhibition of immune cell migration, activation of endothelial cell and plays a critical role in resistance to cancer immunotherapy. Therapeutics targeting SEMA4D thus was developed for cancer immunotherapy and overcoming resistance to cancer immunotherapy.

SEMA4D antibodies cross reactive to human, cyno and mouse SEMA4D were generated with naïve human scFv phage display approach. Clone that blocked SEMA4D interaction with its ligands PlexinB1 and PlexinB2, antagonized SEMA4D induced tumor cell migration and myeloid derived cell proliferation were affinity matured to sub-nanomolar affinity. In vivo studies with CT26 syngeneic mouse model demonstrated tumor growth inhibition and prolonged survival by SEMA4D antibody alone and in combination with anti-PD-1 antibody.

To summarize, we have generated a fully human anti-SEMA4D antibody with superior in vitro and in vivo potency and is currently in preclinical development stage.

Teddy Yang

Vice President, Head of Biologics Discovery
ChemPartner

Teddy Yang has almost 15 years of industry experience gained with several companies including Genentech, China Novartis Institute of BioMedical Research, RuiYi Biopharmaceuticals and ChemPartner where he has been the Vice President and Head of Biologics Discovery for the past 6 years. Teddy has numerous patents pending in the antibody space and has had his research published in many peer-reviewed publications over the years. Teddy has a BSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Hong Kong as well as Post-Doctoral Fellow studies at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

4:45 – 5:45pm

How to gain the full potential out of the emerging TCE, Co-stim, checkpoint and immuno-cytokine modalities in cancer therapy

Beyond the classic checkpoint inhibitors targeting PD-(L)1 or CTLA-4, other immunomodulatory compounds could so far not fulfill the expectations
Especially in solid cancer a lot of different combination studies are undergoing clinical development, but success stories are still rare
What are the lessons learnt from the unsuccessful attempts?
What are the future direction in development?

Christian Kunz

Director, Protein Engineering
Ridgeline Discovery

Christian Kunz is a biochemist by training and was working for 15 years at MorphoSys before joining Ridgeline Discovery in September this year.

At MorphoSys he was working as a Director, supervising a project team in therapeutic antibody discovery. He was focusing in the beginning of his career on selection and screening system to obtain a broad epitope and functional diversity of lead antibodies. In the recent years, his main focus was the development of immuno-modulatory compounds using various bispecific entities for different oncological indications.

Currently he is working at Ridgeline Discovery, a Versant Ventures Discovery Engine, that enables new start-up companies to successfully develop their innovative technologies.

5:45 – 6:45pm

Closing Address & Canape/Drinks Reception

Lead Identification & Optimisation

Time

Titles and Bullets

Facilitator

8:00 – 8:30am

Registration

8:30 – 9:00am

Opening Address & Keynote: DNA Aptamers as a Promising Alternative for Analytical and Therapeutic Applications

Daniel Fologea

Adjunct Scientist, Sapidyne Instruments & Professor of Physics, Boise State University
Sapidyne Instruments

9:05 – 10:05am

Improving developability and polyspecificity during lead optimisation

What are the key drivers of polyspecificity and developability issues?
Do we currently have reliable methods to deselect for these properties?
What are the tools we need?
How to we apply these tool reagents?
Is it possible to drive for affinity-based optimisation while deselecting for “undesirable” properties?

Matthew Lambert

Director, BioMedicine Design
Pfizer

Matthew Lambert has been with Pfizer since 2007. He is a Director in the BioMedicine Design unit at Pfizer. He leads the Display-based Optimisation group in Dublin, Ireland. His group are responsible for biotherapeutic lead generation and optimisation, primarily using phage- and yeast-display technology platforms. Matthew’s group has a keen interest in the deselection of undesirable clones throughout the display process. His group’s current focus is on the development of methodologies to pre-select optimal drug candidates, thus avoiding lengthy engineering efforts.

10:10 – 10:40am

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

10:40 – 11:10am

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

11:10 – 11:20am

Morning Refreshments

11:20am – 12:20pm

Binding analysis: What elements are critical and how much information is enough for lead identification/validation?

How do you choose between candidates if they all have “good” Kd’s?
Does it matter if I measure my Kd’s at 4, 20, or 37 C?
How will the interaction take place in vivo and what factors contribute?
How do you ensure reproducibility of data?

Frank Hamacher

Head of Operational Business – Europe
Sapidyne Instruments

Frank Hamacher is a Biochemist and has worked in cancer research at the “Institute of Pathology” at the Charite in Berlin and in the “Laboratory of Immunological and Molecular Cancer Research” in Salzburg/Austria, with a focus on Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, Anaplastic Large Cell Lymphoma and Breast Cancer, detecting Biomarkers for Cancer Therapy. In 2014, Frank joined Sapidyne Instruments to run the European Business regarding Customer Service, Advice and Supervision. With the KinExA-Technology from Sapidyne Instruments you can measure Affinity and Kinetics of Proteins under natural conditions and directly in Cell systems.

12:20 – 1:20pm

Networking Lunch

1:20 – 1:50pm

Spotlight Presentation – There’s So Much More Than Binding – An Update on Customized Solutions for Antibody Discovery with Challenging Target Product Profiles

Volker Lang

Managing Director
AbCheck

1:55 – 2:55pm

Biophysical and biochemical strategies for lead selection and optimization that provide improved manufacturability

Key challenges for the manufacturing of biotherapeutics from the molecule perspective
What are the properties needed to allow “easy CMC” or good manufacturability?
Strategies to identify potential liabilities and hot spots early on, including examples
Strategies for risk mitigation
Opportunities and strategies for improvement during lead identification and optimization

Jörg Regula

Global Quality Development
Boehringer Ingelheim

Joerg holds a PhD in Biochemistry and has been working for more than 20 years in small and large pharmaceutical companies in research and early development of biotherapeutics.

The initial focus of his work was mass spectrometry and later at Roche and Sanofi, it expanded to protein analytics including potency testing. Developability assessment and protein engineering are fields of high personal interest. Besides this Joerg was driving the CMC development of different bispecific antibodies as early project leader. At iOmx Therapeutics AG Joerg was heading the CMC Development and currently at Boehringer Ingelheim he is working as CMC expert supporting internal biologics projects and assessing external opportunities.

3:00 – 3:30pm

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

3:30 – 4:00pm

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

4:00 – 4:10pm

Afternoon Refreshment Break

4:10 – 4:40pm

Poster Session: Writing the future of biologics using the Twist Biopharma library of libraries

Utilizing its proprietary DNA technology to write synthetic libraries, Twist Biopharma provides end-to-end antibody discovery libraries including both (1) highly diverse synthetic naïve antibody phage display libraries and (2) target class specific antibody phage display libraries against difficult-to-drug targets. In this talk, Aaron Sato, CSO, will present several POC data on each member of their Library of Libraries. For some of the targets, the power of selecting multiple libraries against each target will be highlighted.

Aaron Sato

Chief Scientific Officer
Twist Biopharma

Aaron is Chief Scientific Officer of the Biopharma Vertical at Twist Bioscience. Prior to Twist, he served as Chief Scientific Officer of LakePharma, leading the California Antibody Center, which discovers novel antibody therapeutics for its clients. He also oversaw all discovery research functions both as Vice President of Protein Sciences at Surrozen, and previously, as Vice President of Research at Sutro Biopharma, Inc. He also held director level positions at both Oncomed and Dyax Corp.

4:45 – 5:45pm

Preclinical development of antibody leads with complex biology/MoA

How do we select leads and demonstrate the intended MoA and PoC when relevant in vivo models are hard to find?
How do we address safety of leads with no tox species cross-reactivity?
How do we demonstrate combination therapy effects?
How do we translate preclinical findings to the clinic?

Johan Lantto

Project & Portfolio Director
Symphogen

Johan Lantto is a Project & Portfolio Director at Symphogen, a Servier company based in Denmark. Johan holds a Ph.D. in Immunotechnology from Lund University, Sweden, where he studied antibody evolution and repertoire development, and he has more than 20 years of experience with antibody engineering and the development of therapeutic antibodies. For the past 17 years, Johan has worked for Symphogen where he has been involved in the development of the company’s Symplex™ antibody discovery platform as well as been responsible for antibody drug discovery and development projects within infectious disease and oncology. Johan has been responsible for six oncology projects that have been brought to the clinic by Symphogen.

5:45 – 6:45pm

Closing Address & Canape/Drinks Reception

Formats & Scaffolds

Time

Titles and Bullets

Facilitator

8:00am – 8:30am

Registration

8:30 – 9:00am

Opening Address & Keynote: DNA Aptamers as a Promising Alternative for Analytical and Therapeutic Applications

Daniel Fologea

Adjunct Scientist, Sapidyne Instruments & Professor of Physics, Boise State University
Sapidyne Instruments

9:05 – 10:05am

Building multi-functional molecules to target specific pharmacological needs

Bi-specific antibodies: hype or reality?
Where are bi- or multi-functional molecules currently applied and which additional applications can we envision?
From binder generation to final format selection up to CMC: what are the biggest challenges along the value chain?

Stefan Weigand

Global Head, Large Molecule Research
Roche

Stefan Weigand, has been with Roche since 2005. He is currently Head of Large Molecule Research at Roche pRED, responsible for Roche’s industry-leading efforts in biologics from concept to clinic. Prior to taking on this role in 2015, Stefan acted as Head of Biochemical and Analytical Research for Biologics and has held several roles with increasing responsibility in Discovery Oncology and External Innovation.

Prior to joining Roche, Stefan worked in pre-clinical research at Bayer Health Care. Stefan is a chemist by training (Universities of Würzburg and Göttingen) and has completed his postdoctoral studies at Stanford University, California.

10:10 – 10:40am

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

10:40 – 11:10am

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

11:10 – 11:20am

Morning Refreshments

11:20 – 12:20pm

Nonclinical immunogenicity mitigation strategies

What are the causes of unwanted immunogenicity?
Tools for early immunogenicity assessment
Immunogenicity of new modalities and complex formats
How to use the data of early immunogenicity assessment?
Regulatory considerations

Chloé Ackaert

Senior Scientist
ImmunXperts

Chloé Ackaert is a pharmacist by training (Catholic University of Leuven 2009) and obtained her PhD at the University of Salzburg (Austria) for the research on the impact of nitration on the immunogenicity of birch pollen allergens in 2013. She first joined ImmunXperts in the start-up phase and continued academic research at the Free University of Brussels (2015-2018) working on the immunogenicity of Nanobodies. Afterwards, she joined ImmunXperts again where she is a senior scientist in the immunogenicity team, collaborating both on the client-based projects as well as on the continuous basic research projects to elucidate immunogenicity-related questions.

12:20 – 1:20pm

Networking Lunch

1:20 – 1:50pm

Spotlight Presentation – There’s So Much More Than Binding – An Update on Customized Solutions for Antibody Discovery with Challenging Target Product Profiles

Volker Lang

Managing Director
AbCheck

1:55 – 2:55pm

Engineering bispecifics for next-generation immunotherapies

What are the key learnings from advances in the bispecific T cell engager field?
How can the bispecifics field mitigate safety concerns? :
- Grappling with the complex continuum of affinity/specificity/potency/toxicity
What are the future opportunities? :
- Dual-targeting and biparatopic approaches- what can they offer?
- Multi-specifics- are we running before we can walk?

Stephen Hearty

Head of Antibody Research
Immunocore

Stephen Hearty joined Immunocore in 2014 to establish the Autoimmune Research arm and subsequently he also established the Antibody Research group which he currently heads with a broad research remit spanning both discovery research and platform development efforts. He obtained his Ph.D. in Applied Biochemistry from Dublin City University in 2005 specialising in novel antibody generation and has continued to work extensively across the antibody field.

3:00 – 3:30pm

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

3:30 – 4:00pm

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

4:00 – 4:10pm

Afternoon Refreshments

4:10 – 4:40pm

Poster Session: Nonclinical immunogenicity mitigation strategies

New mAbs or agents with other structures have revolutionized treatment options for several diseases and malignancies in the past few years, and more are currently being evaluated in the clinic. The development of new therapeutics comes with a series of challenges and questions, of which one is the risk for unwanted immunogenicity which can lead to decreased efficacy and safety concerns.
Today, both in silico and in vitro preclinical tools are available to identify early on therapeutic candidates with a high immunogenicity risk potential. Additionally, certain tools can be used to mitigate the immunogenicity potential, and thus improve and accelerate therapeutic drug development and reduce the number of clinical failures.

Chloé Ackaert

Senior Scientist
ImmunXperts

4:45 – 5:45pm

Designing and validating novel Fc platforms for therapeutics antibody development

The core of antibody therapy and manufacture is greatly facilitated by the Fc portion and this gives great advantages to the purification and efficacy of biological therapeutics.
However, as more complex biologics are designed with the addition and modifications of Fc portions, how can the additional functional features be tallied with manufacturing these new platforms at scale?
What at the additional adverse events that need to be considered with Fc modifications when preparing regulatory packages?

Zahra Jawad

Chief Executive Officer
Creasallis

Zahra Jawad obtained her PhD from the University of Cambridge in Biochemistry looking at the structure and evolution of protein folds. After several postdocs in protein engineering, Zahra moved to industry working at Domantis and later GSK on the engineering of domain antibodies for therapy. Zahra then moved onto MRC-technology/Lifearc on the engineering of monoclonal antibodies and was the head of Discovery Technology at Agenus, focusing on platform innovation specifically for cancer. Currently, Zahra has founded a new startup called Creasallis which looks for creative antibody solutions. The first technology, the CreaTap™ looks at improving the penetration of antibodies into the tumour. Creasallis won a place at the Accelerate@Babraham accelerator programme in Cambridge, UK in 2021.

5:45 – 6:45pm

Closing Address & Canape/Drinks Reception

Bispecific Antibody Strategies

Time

Titles and Bullets

Facilitator

8:00 – 8:30am

Registration

8:30 – 9:00am

Opening Address & Keynote: DNA Aptamers as a Promising Alternative for Analytical and Therapeutic Applications

Daniel Fologea

Adjunct Scientist, Sapidyne Instruments & Professor of Physics, Boise State University
Sapidyne Instruments

9:05 – 10:05am

Bispecific antibodies – how to match target and indication with the optimal bispecific format

Are any bispecific formats ahead of the pack for developability or functional characteristics?
IgG like vs. non-IgG like bispecifics – pros and cons?
Next frontier to cross with bispecific antibodies?

Berit Krogh

Scientific Director
Dragonfly Therapeutics

Berit Olsen Krogh has a background in molecular biology, protein engineering and structure-function analyses. Started working on therapeutic antibodies more than 15 years ago. Initial responsibilities included cloning and humanization of rodent/rabbit antibodies, but focus area quickly expanded to general antibody discovery, engineering, expression and production cell line development.

Currently working on developing bispecific antibodies for treatment of cancer and inflammatory diseases at the Copenhagen site of Dragonfly Therapeutics. Interests remain on antibody discovery and engineering to support selection of superior lead candidates.

10:10 – 10:40am

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

10:40 – 11:10am

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

11:10 – 11:20am

Morning Refreshments

11:20am – 12:20pm

Antibody lead identification and optimisation for bispecifics

What are general requirements of antibodies for bispecific immunotherapeutics (different modalities/formats)?
How does affinity, avidity/format and epitope influence efficacy and toxicity?
Can we predict the optimal target product profile?
How can we integrate these specific requirements into the antibody discovery?
How can we optimize antibody moieties to maximize the therapeutic window?

Thomas Schirrmann

Chief Executive Officer
YUMAB

Thomas Schirrmann is biochemist by training and holds an PhD in immunology. He worked for more than 20 years in research with focus on antibody technologies and targeted immunotherapies including CAR-NK, bispecifics and antibody fusion proteins. He published >70 scientific publications and is co-inventor of several patents. In 2012/12, he co-founded the antibody platform company YUMAB, which he manages as CEO since then. In 2020, he spun-out CORAT Therapeutics (founding CEO and now COO), which brought its anti-COVD-19 lead program COR-101 in 11 months from target to the clinics.

12:20 – 1:20pm

Networking Lunch

1:20 – 1:50pm

Spotlight Presentation – There’s So Much More Than Binding – An Update on Customized Solutions for Antibody Discovery with Challenging Target Product Profiles

Volker Lang

Managing Director
AbCheck

1:55 – 2:55pm

LEAD IDENTIFICATION & OPTIMIZATION topic: Rapid antibody lead optimization: Current and future strategies

How do we rank potential developability risk & which data determine if, when, and how, specific risks should be addressed?
As acceptable developability profiles for lead candidates evolve how is current practice changing to meet increasingly stringent criteria and reduced timelines?
What does the future of developability risk assessment look like, including potential benefits of AI/ML methods?

Mark Bushell

Senior Scientist, Process & Application Development
Agenus

Mark Bushell is a Senior Scientist at Agenus where he leads platform development initiatives to improve in-house antibody optimisation processes. Following degrees in Chemistry and Biochemistry Mark has experience across many fields working in both academia and industry on platform and process development. As antibody research continually delivers innovations that promise greater therapeutic efficacy Mark is passionate about how protein engineering can be used to ensure the next generation of therapeutic antibodies retain the biophysical properties required for manufacturing and developability. Only when both biology and developability are successful will new antibody-based therapeutics deliver long-term benefits for patients.

3:00 – 3:30pm

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

3:30 – 4:00pm

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

4:00 – 4:10pm

Afternoon Refreshments

4:10 – 4:40pm

Poster Session: Recombinant tool antibodies for clinical monitoring of bispecifics and other multivalent biologics

Highly specific anti-idiotypic antibodies that can discriminate between the different arms of a bispecific are required for pharmacokinetic assay development. In this presentation we will describe guided selection strategies to generate such critical reagents using antibody phage display. We introduce our new modular antibody assembly platform based on SpyTag technology, which offers options for multiple Fab and Ig-like formats, and site-specific conjugation. This innovative combination of technologies results in flexible assay design options, and improved assay sensitivity and robustness.

Paul Royle

Technical Sales Manager
Bio-Rad Laboratories

Paul Royle is the Technical Sales Manager for Bio-Rad’s Custom Antibody Service (HuCAL) and has been with Bio-Rad’s Antibody Division for over 8 years. Prior to this, he worked in an immunology diagnostics company for almost 7 years. Paul holds a degree and PhD from the University of Nottingham (UK) and has post-doctoral research experience from the University of Warwick (UK).

5:45 – 6:45pm

Closing Address & Canape/Drinks Reception

Emerging Technologies

Time

Titles and Bullets

Facilitator

8:00 – 8:30am

Registration

8:30 – 9:00am

Opening Address & Keynote: DNA Aptamers as a Promising Alternative for Analytical and Therapeutic Applications

Daniel Fologea

Adjunct Scientist, Sapidyne Instruments & Professor of Physics, Boise State University
Sapidyne Instruments

9:05 – 10:05am

Novel administration routes: Changing the paradigm for how and where we deliver biologics

Inhalation as a strategy to deliver Biologics: What are the major considerations? Learnings from antibody development during the Covid-19 pandemic?
mRNA/LNPs to deliver Biologics: “Emerging” technology gaining attention and mainstream acceptance during pandemic? What are the key advantages, challenges?
Oral delivery of Biologics: When may this make sense? Small vs large biologics? Considerations of half-life, potency, bioavailability and CoGs?
When is the best time during lead discovery and optimization to consider the route of administration? What could be optimized at the beginning for the best chance of success? Impact on flexibility?

Fionnuala McAleese Eser

Head of Portfolio & Assays
Bayer

Fionnuala received her PhD (Microbiology) from Trinity College Dublin in 2002. Her post-doctoral studies were carried out at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals (NY) where she worked on S. aureus antibiotic resistance mechanisms. She then transferred to the Global Biologics organization at Wyeth (Cambridge, MA;
acquired by Pfizer in 2009) where she spent 5 years as a Senior Scientist working primarily with phage display in the antibody lead discovery department. In 2010, she moved to Heidelberg Germany in a role as Head of Antibody Lead Discovery for Affimed, generating bispecific NK and T-cell engagers. Since 2013, Fionnuala had been a Group Leader in the Antibody Lead Discovery department at Bayer before transitioning into her current role in 2020 as Director of Biologics Research.

10:10 – 10:40am

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

10:40 – 11:10am

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

11:10 – 11:20am

Morning Refreshments

11:20am – 12:20pm

Next-generation antibody discovery platforms – challenges and opportunities

Beyond binding and functional properties, what are the key considerations during primary discovery activities?
What are the bottlenecks in discovery pipelines?
What are the most challenging selection criteria to work with?
What the pros/cons of 1) display based approaches, 2) natural immune systems, 3) in silico generated antibodies?
Targets and modalities — What are the most productive strategies to identify lead molecules for next generation biologics?
Attrition, a good thing or bad?

Roza Bidshahri

Senior Scientist and BD Liaison
AbCellera

Roza Bidshahri is a Senior Scientist and BD Liaison at AbCellera, a company that searches, decodes, and analyzes natural immune systems to find antibodies that its partners can develop into drugs to prevent and treat disease. Roza joined AbCellera in 2016 as a Senior Research Scientist to develop a rapid antibody expression pipeline and helped initiate AbCellera’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She obtained her PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of British Columbia, where she developed novel digital PCR based assays for screening cancer mutation hotspots in colorectal cancer patients.

12:20 – 1:20pm

Networking Lunch

1:20 – 1:50pm

Spotlight Presentation – There’s So Much More Than Binding – An Update on Customized Solutions for Antibody Discovery with Challenging Target Product Profiles

Volker Lang

Managing Director
AbCheck

1:55 – 2:55pm

Using machine learning to accelerate antibody discovery

Machine learning (ML) is increasingly used in early discovery, candidate engineering/optimisation, and development phases to select high-quality therapeutic antibody candidates.
Can we highlight few applications and ML approaches used in those applications?
What are the technological gaps in acquiring high-quality and high throughput data for building high-fidelity ML models?
What are the challenges in building robust ML analysis and prediction frameworks for antibody discovery applications?

Manjunath Hegde

Scientific Investigator & Associate Fellow
GlaxoSmithKline

Manjunath Hegde (MJ) is a Principal Scientist in the Biopharm Discovery division at GlaxoSmithKline R&D. He is based in Stevenage, UK. He has a PhD in Chemical & Biomedical Engineering and has over 15 years of experience in molecular and cell biology, infectious diseases, microfluidics, high throughput screening and multiparametric data analysis pipeline development. Over the last few years, he has led the development and implementation of several high throughput single-cell screening and NGS capabilities for the early discovery of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies. MJ is also one of the select groups of scientists elected into the GSK Fellowship for their scientific contributions.

3:00 – 3:30pm

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

3:30 – 4:00pm

1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break

4:00 – 4:10pm

Afternoon Refreshments

4:45 – 5:45pm

How to design for improved PK properties: Which in silico & in vitro technologies should be used?

Several studies have indicated a link between the biophysical properties of mAbs and PK. What is the importance of the parameters in relation to PK prediction?
Can we utilize in silico calculated biophysical scores as parameter to predict PK and will these add beyond poly-specificity assays or other HTP vitro assays?
To what extend does more complicated proteome screening assays add value for PK prediction and clinical fidelity?

Allan Jensen

Vice President, Biotherapeutic Discovery
Lundbeck

Allan Jensen is an expert in discovery and preclinical development of antibody-based drugs and has several years of experience from various positions in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. Allan holds M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Molecular Biology for University of Aarhus. He entered the field of antibody discovery at Symphogen A/S almost two decades ago, continued his career at Pfizer and joined Lundbeck as Senior Director, with responsibility for Biotherapeutic discovery where he is now Vice President of the group. He has provided significant scientific input to technologies for antibody discovery and bringing drug candidates into the clinic.

5:45 – 6:45pm

Closing Address & Canape/Drinks Reception

Antibody Therapeutics Xchange
Europe
November 30, 2021

Target Selection

Lead Identification & Optimisation

Formats & Scaffolds

Bispecific Antibody Strategies

Emerging Technologies

Lead Partner

Partners

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Antibody Therapeutics Xchange Europe November 30, 2021

Target Selection

Lead Identification & Optimisation

Formats & Scaffolds

Bispecific Antibody Strategies

Emerging Technologies

Lead Partner

Partners

Antibody Therapeutics Xchange
Europe
November 30, 2021