Antibody Therapeutics Xchange East Coast 2019

Target Selection

Time
Titles and Bullets
Facilitator
8:00am – 8:30am

Registration

8:30am – 9:00am

Opening Address & Keynote
 
Balancing Principles and Pragmatism in Antibody Discovery
Marc Damelin, Executive Director, Head of Biology Mersana Therapeutics

9:05am – 10:05am

Single agent vs. combinations; antibody or other platform (fragments, bispecific, etc)
  • When is the right time to use bispecific technology?  
  • Can predictions be made on targets which are most amenable to bispecific technology?
  • Cases in which a single agent combination would be optimal?
  • Would certain targets benefit from more innovative biologic combinations?

Senior Director, Head of Protein Engineering & Expression
Takeda

Angela began her career working on lysosomal storage disorders at Transkaryotic Therapies which was purchased by Shire in 2005. At Shire, Angela held leadership positions spanning all technical fields involved in designing and testing protein therapeutic development candidates. In 2014 Angela became Head of Protein and Antibody Engineering at Shire, where her team is responsible for delivering comprehensive data packages for optimized protein and antibody therapeutics for a diverse pipeline of rare diseases. Takeda purchased Shire in January 2019. Angela received her bachelors degree from St. Olaf College, and a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of New Hampshire.

Portrait picture of Angela Norton
10:10am – 10:40am

1-2-1 Meetings / Networking Break

10:40am – 10:50am

Morning Refreshments

10:50am – 11:50am

Implementing discovery strategies to value the therapeutic potential of lead antibody candidates
  • Optimal discovery method versus available budget – how do we decide the best path?
  • Animal immunizations, natural human antibody repertoire library selection, or synthetic library selection – what are the pros and cons?
  • What is the best strategy for choosing the lead candidate selection criteria and at what point should a functional study be integrated – early or later?
  • What are the ideal immunization and selection tools? If appropriate cell lines and/or recombinant proteins are not available?

Head of Contract Research
ImmunoPrecise Antibodies

Debby Kruijsen obtained a PhD in immunology at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands in 2011, studying the role of antibodies in affecting antigen presentation and subsequent Respiratory Syncytial Virus specific T cell activation. In 2012, Debby joined ModiQuest Research, an ImmunoPrecise Antibodies, Ltd. company, as a scientist supervising hybridoma antibody discovery projects. She was promoted in 2013 to Head of Contract Research for ModiQuest Research were she is responsible for the daily management within the CRO and is a member of the business development group.

Portrait picture of Debby Kruijsen
11:55am – 12:25am

1-2-1 Meetings / Networking Break

12:30pm – 1:30pm

Prioritisation: so many targets, so little time
  • How does disease indication impact target selection?  
  • What weight do you give to various target identification strategies (e.g. functional screening, gene or protein expression data, pathway analysis, clinical data, etc) for prioritizing targets?
  • When is it okay to be a follow-on compound?

Vice President R&D
Immunome

Matthew Robinson is VP, Research & Development for Immunome.  Immunome is a biotechnology company with a growing pipeline of cancer immunotherapies fueled by the human immune system.  Prior to joining Immunome he was on the faculty at Fox Chase Cancer Center and led a research laboratory developing antibody-based molecules for the detection and treatment of cancer.  Matthew co-founded RAbD Biotech, a company focused on the computational design of antibodies and served on the Scientific Advisory Boards of a number of antibody-focused biotechnology companies.  He earned a Ph.D. from University of Rochester and performed post-doctoral work at Yale University.

Portrait picture of Matthew Robinson
1:30pm – 2:30pm

Networking Lunch

2:30pm – 3:00pm

Poster Session: Novel and unique platform for discovery of human lead antibody molecules utilizing OmniMouse – ImmunoPrecise Antibodies
3:00pm – 3:30pm

1-2-1 Meetings / Networking Break

3:30pm – 3:40pm

Afternoon Refreshments

3:40pm – 4:10pm

1-2-1 Meetings / Networking Break

4:15pm – 5:15pm

Off limits or fair game? Antibody drug discovery for complex targets
  • How has our increased understanding of disease biology, mechanism of action, and molecular players increased our ability to develop biotherapeutics involving targets that were previously thought as undruggable?
  • What has changed in the antibody technology landscape that has forced drug discovery scientists to think differently about when to use a biologic against a given target?
  • Are targets in the brain the final frontier, and how will we get there?
  • Multi-specific conditional targeting half-life extended drug-conjugated biologics? Are we trying to be too clever in our engineering efforts to access difficult drug targets?

Senior Director, Discovery Biologics
Abbvie

Blaine Stine has over 18 years of research and leadership experience in the biopharmaceutical industry with broad experience in protein biochemistry, protein analytics, CMC, and biologics discovery. He currently leads a team of 40 scientists in Worcester MA responsible for antibody discovery, engineering, production and screening supporting all AbbVie therapeutic areas. Prior to his current role as Senior Director in Global Biologics R&D, Blaine has held strategic positions at AbbVie including Principle Research Scientist Protein Analytics, and Associate Director Biologics CMC.

Blaine attended the University of California San Diego (B.A. Molecular Biology) and Northwestern University (Ph.D. in Biochemistry).

Portrait picture of Blaine Stine
5:15pm – 5:45pm

Closing Keynote & Address
 
Therapeutic antibodies: line of sight 
Partha Chowdhury, Senior Director & Head, Antibody Discovery, Sanofi-Genzyme

5:45pm

Canape/Drinks Reception

Partners

Antibody Therapeutics Xchange | East Coast 2019
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