Selexis SA and Fusion Antibodies Services Form Partnership

Selexis SA, a global life sciences company for drug discovery, cell line development and scale-up to manufacturing of therapeutic proteins, announced today the establishment of a partnership with Fusion Antibodies Services that will combine core technologies of the two companies allowing customers to link monoclonal antibody (MAb) humanization programs with the generation of high performing and fully documented CHO cell lines. Customers will be able to seamlessly go from non-human MAbs to clinical candidate generated in a cGMP ready CHO cell line in 8 months. Clinical candidates are selected based on both expression and binding activity from stable CHO pools.

Using the antibody humanization and engineering services from Fusion Antibodies, sequenced variable domains of mouse MAbs from a hybridoma cell line are analyzed using bioinformatics. The complementarity determining regions (CDRs) of the variable domains are identified and incorporated into human immunoglobulin donor sequences to generate panels of full length heavy and light chain antibodies. Optimal heavy and light chain pairs are chosen using the Selexis SUREvariant Screening(tm) platform which allows for the identification of the best antibody based on both activity and expression level from stable cell pools.

"Fusion's world-class antibody humanization and sequencing services are a natural fit with our unique cell line generation technology platform. This partnership will help support our customers much earlier in the discovery process." said Dr. Igor Fisch, President and CEO of Selexis. "Selexis is recognized as a leader in mammalian cell line development, and now we continue to demonstrate the power of the SUREtechnology(tm) Platform for drug discovery and lead identification."

"This collaboration is a major paradigm shift in the development and selection of a lead clinical candidate. Now our customers can make critical decisions based on activity and expression level, a key element in both clinical and commercial success," said Dr. Paul Kerr, Managing Director of Fusion Antibodies. "Combining our expertise provides a seamless approach for improving and expediting therapeutic monoclonal antibody development."