Abcam and BrickBio announce a partnership to incorporate conjugation-ready sites into recombinant antibodies across Abcam’s portfolio
Cambridge, UK – Nov. 8, 2019 — Abcam plc, a global innovator in life science reagents and tools, is today pleased to announce a strategic partnership with BrickBio, experts in site-specific protein modification and a Tiger Gene portfolio company, covering the use of BrickBio’s proprietary platform for introducing conjugation-ready sites into antibodies and other proteins in both mammalian and bacterial expression systems.
Under the partnership, Abcam will have exclusive rights to the platform for the creation of novel conjugation-ready recombinant products for the research tools market, as well as rights to commercialize the platform across its recombinant antibody and protein portfolio for diagnostic use. In addition, Abcam will make a financial investment in BrickBio and work together with the BrickBio team to further industrialize the platform.
BrickBio’s platform provides an unparalleled ability to site-selectively modify proteins in a broad range of eukaryotic and bacterial cell lines. Using a proprietary engineered tRNA synthetase/tRNA pair, the platform can readily incorporate unnatural amino acids that can then be coupled to a second molecule for labeling or other research applications, or to create protein-conjugate therapeutics including Antibody-Drug-Conjugates (ADCs).
Commenting on the partnership and investment, Cheri Walker, SVP of Corporate Development at Abcam, said: “We are excited about the opportunity to partner with BrickBio, an innovative team that has developed one of the most exciting technologies that we have seen in the recombinant antibody space. The market needs easy and reliable conjugation-ready solutions, and together, Abcam and BrickBio plan to deliver these solutions to the market. We are committed to incorporate this technology across our in-house recombinant antibody and protein portfolios.”
John Boyce, CEO of BrickBio and Co-Founder of Tiger Gene, commented: “With one of the largest and highest quality recombinant antibody portfolios in the market, Abcam was a natural fit to be our exclusive partner to take our technology to scientific researchers. We are excited to work together to further industrialize the platform and see it widely introduced into the research segment of the market. At the same time, BrickBio will focus on becoming a critical platform for therapeutic partners, enabling biopharma clients to solve difficult protein-based drug development needs, helping to build high performing protein therapeutics, such as ADCs, for controlled labeling and manufacturing.”
About BrickBio Inc
BrickBio, a Boston-based biotechnology company, empowers next-generation unnatural amino acid coupled protein conjugation with its site-specific and site-selective platform. The platform technology spans prokaryotic and eukaryotic expression systems, enabling the development of unique biologics and protein therapeutics with enhanced characteristics, including improvements to half-life, dosage and efficacy. With the broadest toolkit of bioconjugation handles, BrickBio can optimize any conjugate and is uniquely situated to push the frontier of biologics with the selective modification of multiple distinct sites on a single protein. BrickBio is working with partners to develop best-in-class therapeutics and RUO kits with its proprietary bioconjugation strategies.
