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

Time
Titles and Bullets
Facilitator
8:00 – 8:30am
Registration 
8:30 – 9:00am
Opening Address & Keynote Presentation
 

Discovery of Diverse, Developable Antibody Panels Using AlivaMab® Mouse: The Foundation for Successful Antibody Therapeutics

More challenging targets, more challenging design goals, and complexly engineered advanced therapeutic modalities require panels of highly diverse antibodies as the foundation for success. AlivaMab Discovery Services’ fit-for-purpose strategies and technologies efficiently deliver panels of highly diverse antibodies with inherent characteristics required for successful biologic drug discovery and development. These antibody panels are application-ready for both standard antibody formats and as substrate for advanced therapeutic modalities.

VP of 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.

Jane Seagal
9:05 – 10:05am
Considerations and challenges guiding target selection in the development of antibody-based therapeutics
  • 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 ImginAb. A Los Angeles based biotech where he oversees the development of antibody fragments for use as toxic payload delivery in cancer radiotherapy. Alessandro has 12 years of experience in project leadership, target selection, and biologics discovery and development in multiple therapeutic areas with special emphasis to cancer and immuno-oncology. Before joining ImaginAb, Alessandro 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.

Alessandro Mascioni
10:10 – 10:40am
10:40 – 11:10am
1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break
1-2-1 Meetings/Networking Break
11:10 – 11:20am
Morning Refreshment Break
11:20 – 12:20am

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?

Director, International Business Development, Rapid Novor

Anthony has been heading the business development at Rapid Novor for nearly 6 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™, HDX-MS epitope mapping, and SPR Kinetic analysis solutions 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 hobby farmer and an ongoing researcher of biotech business in his spare time.

Portrait picture of Anthony Stajduhar
12:20 – 1:20pm
1:20 – 1:50pm
Networking Lunch Break

Spotlight Presentation-

Maximizing diversity – IPA’s multi-strategy approach

  • Traditional methods of driving diversity – Species, immunization, and discovery platforms
  • Pros and Cons of individuals approaches (case studies)
  • Next generational methods of driving diversity

Vice President, Clients 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.

Barry Duplantis web
1:55 – 2:55pm

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?

Senior Scientist, Rondo Therapeutics

Starlynn Clarke leads the preclinical biology group at Rondo Therapeutics, an IO-focused biopharmaceutical
company developing innovative bispecific therapeutic antibodies for treating solid tumors. Starlynn has worked in discovery and preclinical development in the fields of oncology and immunology at several biotechnology start-up companies, including Frontier Medicines and Caribou Biosciences. As a founding member of the preclinical biology
team at Teneobio, a highly successful multispecific therapeutic antibody company, she contributed to several
bispecific antibody programs currently in clinical trials. Starlynn completed her PhD in the lab of Charles Craik at UCSF, where she studied novel viral and fungal host-pathogen interactions.

Stralynn Clarke
3:00 – 3:30pm
3:30 – 4:00pm
1-2-1 Meetings
1-2-1 Meetings
4:00 – 4:10pm
Afternoon Refreshments
4:10– 4:40pm
Lead Identification & Optimization Topic: Functional evaluation of unique anti-PDL1 antibodies generated through single plasma B cell cloning on the Beacon® platform versus a standard hybridoma approach
  • We investigated whether superior anti-PD-L1 antibodies with greater diversity, affinity, and/or
    functional activity could be generated using the Beacon® platform (Berkeley Lights, Inc., (BLI))
    as a single B cell cloning (BCC) process which could circumvent a labor-intensive and time-
    consuming Hybridoma process.
  • We screened 33,377 antibody secreting plasma B cells (PCs) onto OptoSelect TM chips and
    identified over 200 antibodies with binding to PD-L1, and of those, 35 antibodies blocked
    binding of PD-1 to PD-L1 (using Image-based analysis).
  • For the traditional approach, 13,536 hybridoma cells were screened with standard RBA assay for
    identifying potential blockers.
  • Overall, we purified 44 hybridoma antibodies and 24 BCC antibodies which were characterized
    for FACS binding, receptor blocking, epitope binning using the Carterra LSA and affinity by
    Biacore 8K and Carterra LSA.
  • We found that 2 antibodies from Beacon and 3 antibodies from hybridoma had triple-digit pM
    affinity. Among these, 2 BCC antibodies retained their potency and diversity while none for
    hybridoma (when compared to Benchmark antibodies).

Director Biologics Discovery, ChemPartner

Andreas Loos, PhD, has joined ChemPartner in 2021 as Director of Biologics Discovery and he currently leads the Biologics Discovery Team at ChemPartner’s South San Francisco site. The team was one of the
first adopters of BLI’s Beacon technology and successfully uses the platform since 2019 to conduct antibody discovery projects. Prior to joining ChemPartner, Andreas has led an antibody discovery and
assay development group at Aridis Pharmaceuticals. During his PhD and post-doctoral training in Gent (Belgium), Heidelberg (Germany) and Vienna (Austria), he studied production and post-translational modifications of biologics in plants.

Andreas Loos photo
5:45 – 6:45pm
Closing Address & Canape/Drinks Reception

Lead Partner

Partners

Antibody Therapeutics Xchange | West Coast 2022
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