California life sciences companies Twist Bioscience and LakePharma have penned a new pact designed to offer antibody discovery services to biopharma clients.
LakePharma, a biologics CRDMO, and Illumina-backed Twist, which has a tech platform that synthesizes DNA on silicon (and hoping to rewrite the way R&D can be done), will create a quid pro quo system under the pact.
LakePharma can offer Twist’s antibody discovery platforms to their existing and future biopharma customers as part of their service offerings, which includes GPCRs, a common target against inflammation, cancer, metabolism, respiratory and pain.
In return, customers of Twist will have access to LakePharma’s integrated discovery and development services.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
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Hua Tu, Ph.D., CEO and chairman of LakePharma, said: “Twist brings a very different approach to antibody discovery and optimization, as they are to create synthetic DNA libraries quickly and tailor the outcome to the needs of our clients to ensure successful antibody discovery efforts. We are very excited to be able to offer the Twist antibody discovery and optimization platform to our clients.
“LakePharma has been relentless in expanding technologies and capabilities. The addition of the Twist synthetic DNA libraries is the latest example of our commitment to provide a diverse range of solutions for biologics discovery and development.”
This isn’t the first deal of this type for LakePharma. Back in 2016, it penned a deal with biotech Trianni focused on using its antibody drugs platform. This came a few months after LakePharma snapped up Massachusetts antibody CRO specialist Blue Sky BioServices, also for an undisclosed fee.
“LakePharma has established its leadership position in the contract research, development and manufacturing arena for biologics, expanding its offerings commensurate with its exceptional growth,” said Emily Leproust, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Twist.
“Through this collaboration, we increase our visibility significantly within the biopharma discovery space. We intend to leverage the incredible strengths of Twist, with our ability to synthesize any library for a given target, together with LakePharma’s expertise in integrated discovery, development and early manufacturing to offer a complete solution from target to clinical candidate.”