West Coast Antibody Therapeutics Xchange
san francisco
27 SEPTEMBER, 2022
Welcome to hubXchange’s West 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.
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, collaboration and networking with your peers.
NOTE: This will be an In-Person event
VENUE DETAILS: DoubleTree by Hilton San Francisco Airport Hotel, 835 Airport Blvd., Burlingame CA 94010-9949
Target Selection
- To which extent the therapeutic modality (conventional antibody, antibody fragment, ADC, CAR-T, RPT, etc.) affects the target selection? Since companies tends to focus on a specific biologic platforms (often with IP protection), are viable targets selected to better match the therapeutic modality, or should the target be selected upfront and the optimal therapeutic approach tailored to the antigen biology?
- To which extent a crowded competitive space affects your target selection? For example, repurposing well validated antigens (Her2, PSMA, CEA, etc.) often attracted substantial VC funding. Should the industry put more focus on novel target discovery, or exploring all the options for old targets?
- How much of your target discovery rely on external innovation through academic collaborations or joint development programs? What are the business/operational/legal challenges presented by such collaborations.
- Is de-novo target discovery part of your process? And what are the costs (time and financial), and risks associated with committing to the discovery and validation of novel targets? What techniques do you employ to discover novel targets and how do you reliably validate preclinically for its expression in patients?
Director of Research, ImaginAb
Alessandro Mascioni works as Director of Research at ImginaAb. A Los Angeles based biotech where he oversees the development of antibody fragments for use as toxic payload delivery in cancer radiotherapy. Dr. Mascioni has 12 years of experience in project leadership, target selection, and biologics discovery and development in multiple therapeutic areas with special enphasis to cancer and immuno-oncology. Before joining ImaginAb, Dr. Mascioni worked at the Pfizer Centers for Therapeutic Innovation in Boston, where he participated to the screening and evaluation of numerous external opportunities, and co-authored research proposals in collaboration with academic key opinion leaders.
Spotlight Presentation
Selecting Target Pairs for Bispecific Therapeutic Antibody Development
- We see exciting bispecific therapeutic antibodies hit the clinic, but how are early target pair choices typically made?
- Do you start with a favorite bispecific format and MoA (a hammer) and go looking for a pair of targets (nails) that can be addressed effectively? Or the other way around?
- Do you start with a favorite target pair then try everything to get a BsAb to work? Or do you focus on achieving a specific biological effect and plan to try many different target pairs to get it?
- Have you identified any strategies for predicting which targets will work well as a pair based on pre-existing data for each individual target?
- Do you primarily focus on obligate bispecific mechanisms of action? Under what circumstances or with which types of targets might you consider using a bispecific molecule when a combination of mAbs could potentially do the job instead?
- If using bispecific antibodies for dual-targeting approaches, what are the key factors influencing your choice of AND versus OR binding logic gates?
CEO & Co-founder, Rondo Therapeutics
Shelley Force Aldred, Ph.D. is a serial entrepreneur and experienced drug developer. Dr. Force Aldred is CEO and co-founder of Rondo Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company developing bispecific therapeutic antibodies for oncology indications. Previously, she served as VP for Preclinical Development at Teneobio, a highly successful multispecific therapeutic antibody company. In the past, Dr. Force Aldred was COO and co-founder of SwitchGear Genomics, a venture-backed functional genomics platform company. Prior to founding SwitchGear Genomics, Dr. Force Aldred was a Scientific Director on Stanford’s ENCODE Project and received her Ph.D. from Stanford University
4:45pm – 5:45pm
Targets for solid malignancies – How to define the therapeutic window experimentally
Principal Investigator, Arcus Bioscience
Lead Identification & Optimization
Challenging targets: Opportunity, vs effort, vs risk: General strategies vs custom approaches: In the end you want the best antibody, no matter what
- Native protein vs strategic enhancements: What advantage can you get from each?
- Are obligate membrane embedded proteins generally of low immunogicity, or just rare?
- Is it possible to make strong epitope mimetics in the form of peptides?
- Can DNA immunization add or even substitute for Protein Immunizations; what makes it immunogenic?
- When should display methods be used? Are they now a true substitute for in vivo derived Abs? Are the newest techniques for Ag preparation really good enough for this application?
VP- Site Head, Zai Lab US LLC
Experienced antibody generator with over 30 years of focus on making human antibodies. First academia, then at some of the top antibody companies in the country: IDEC pharmaceuticals, Medarex, BMS and now Zai Lab (US).
Worked on all aspects of the antibody generation process: target identification, Ag design, human Ig tg mouse designs, immunization strategies, antibody capture strategies, including the use of molecular biology protocols, and Automation protocols. The groups I lead generated more than 10 commercially available Abs: e.g. Ofatumumab, Anifrolumab and Nivolumab.
I authored and co-authored over 100 current patents and patent applications.
Worked only peripherally on display technologies.
- Are there soluble targets available for selections and screening?
- How do we access rare or cryptic epitopes for Ab discovery?
- How do we maximize the number of hits in order to increase the probability of success?
- Does binding translate to desired function? Is early-on HT screening for functional activity possible?
Associate Director- Antibody Discovery, Bristol Myers Squibb
Raphael is Associate Director of Antibody Discovery at BMS in Redwood City, CA. He was previously Director of Antibody Engineering at LakePharma, CA, and held various roles at XOMA’s Antibody Discovery & Engineering. Raphael was a postdoctoral fellow in Jim Marks’s lab at UCSF and earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology under George Georgiou at the University of Texas, Austin. He completed his M.Sc. in Biotechnology at Tel-Aviv University following a B.Sc. in Biology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. He grew up in Athens, Greece, and loves to bike, read, or spend quality time with his family.
- How are you identifying and validating your targets?
- Does the novelty of a target influence your choice of discovery platform (in vivo vs in vitro based discovery) and/or route (in-house vs CRO)? If so, how do you choose?
- What are some strategies for overcoming lack of reagents and developing functional assays?
- How are you identifying biomarkers and in vivo models?
Staff Scientist – Antibody Discovery, Alector
Angie Yee is a Staff Scientist in the Antibody Discovery and Protein Engineering group at Alector, a company pioneering the discovery and development of new therapeutic treatments for neurodegenerative diseases and cancers. Angie currently leads the in vivo antibody discovery group, which she helped to establish in 2016. Prior to joining Alector, she was a part of antibody discovery teams at Rinat Pfizer and Genentech as well as clinical teams at UCSF.
Formats & Scaffolds
Director Antibody Generation, Bristol-Myers Squibb
Increasing the therapeutic index of Ab therapeutics – shielding and other strategies
Senior Principal Scientist, Genentech
Bi/Multi-Specifics
Bi/tri-specific strategies for overcoming cell engager toxicity?
Co-Founder & Senior Director of Protein Engineering, Soteria Biotherapeutics
Spotlight Presentation
In-vivo models for evaluation of bi/multi-specific therapeutics
Senior Vice President, IGM Biosciences, Inc.
4:10 – 4:40pm
Emerging Technologies
Next-generation platforms – Utilizing combinations of invitro, in vivo and in silico methods
Group Leader in Antibody Engineering, Alamar Biosciences
Adrian is a Group Leader in Antibody Engineering at Alamar Biosciences, an early stage proteomics company focused on developing high-affinity antibody pairs for quantification of plasma proteins. As Alamar’s founding scientist, he contributed to the creation of the company’s core technologies of NULISA – zeptomole sensitivity detection of proteins in plasma and ATTOBODY – an antibody discovery platform for routine discovery of picomolar binders, without affinity maturation. Prior to his current role, he invented Snap-ChIP – technology for in situ measurement of antibody specificity and capture efficiency in chromatin immunoprecipitation, which was licensed out to Epicypher. He has also pioneered work on in silico antibody specificity correction, enabling abundance information recovery of specific targets in the assays using low specificity antibodies. Prior to this, Adrian participated in the efforts of the Recombinant Antibody Network in the laboratory of Dr. Anthony Kossiakoff, where he contributed to HTP antibody discovery using a semi-automated phage display platform.