Jay M. Short is founder and CEO of the antibody drug company BioAtla, LLC. He was vice president of research and operations at Stratagene, president of the Stratagene antibody subsidiary Stratacyte, then founder and CEO of Diversa until 2005. While at Diversa, Short invented methods of protein and pathway discovery via metagenomics, in addition to evolution technologies gene site saturation mutagenesis (GSSM) and GeneReassembly, and was the first to combine these discovery and evolution technologies.
Agenus Inc. is a Lexington, Massachusetts-based biotechnology company focused on immunotherapy including immuno-oncology, a field that uses the immune system to control or cure cancer. The company is developing checkpoint modulators (CPMs), patient-specific anti-cancer vaccines, and adjuvants desugned for use with various vaccines. CPM development is a particularly fast-moving field, since early products have produced unprecedented clinical benefits for patients.
Nventa Biopharmaceuticals Corporation was a Canadian-incorporated biopharmaceutical company headquartered in San Diego, California developing therapeutics for the treatment of viral infections and cancer, focusing on diseases caused by human papillomavirus (HPV). Nventa is currently the only company applying heat shock protein (Hsp) technology to target the over 20 million Americans already infected with HPV. Previously headquartered in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, the company’s common stock traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol: NVN.
Symphogen is a biotechnology company located in Copenhagen, Denmark that develops protein drugs based on recombinant monoclonal antibody mixtures. These drugs are different from the polyclonal antibodies, as each antibody in the mixture is produced from one carefully selected clone. Their three main areas of therapeutic research are immunoglobulin replacement, cancer, and infectious diseases. The company was founded in 2000 and has patents on a drug discovery platform called Symplex and a drug manufacturing platform called Sympress. By 2009, ten drugs were being developed with rozrolimupab (Sym001) being the lead product. Laboratoires Servier acquired Symphogen in 2020.
Glembatumumab vedotin is an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) that targets cancer cells expressing transmembrane glycoprotein NMB (GPNMB).
Allozyne is a clinical stage biotechnology company headquartered in Seattle's biotech and high tech innovation corridor. Allozyne was founded in 2005 by California Institute of Technology researchers, and was incubated by Accelerator Corporation. Its lead product candidate, AZ01, is a long acting interferon beta for the treatment of the relapsing remitting form of multiple sclerosis, a chronic degenerative disease characterized by demyelination of nerve fibers leading to severe nerve damage and increasing disability. Multiple sclerosis is estimated to affect 400,000 individuals in the US alone and 2.5 million worldwide. AZ01 is currently undergoing Phase I clinical trials in the US. Preclinical data indicates that AZ01 has the potential to be dosed once monthly compared to the current standard of care dosed anywhere from once daily to once per week.
Antibody–drug conjugates or ADCs are a class of biopharmaceutical drugs designed as a targeted therapy for treating cancer. Unlike chemotherapy, ADCs are intended to target and kill tumor cells while sparing healthy cells. As of 2019, some 56 pharmaceutical companies were developing ADCs.
The duocarmycins are members of a series of related natural products first isolated from Streptomyces bacteria in 1978. They are notable for their extreme cytotoxicity and thus represent a class of exceptionally potent antitumour antibiotics.
Compugen Ltd. is a clinical-stage publicly traded predictive drug discovery and development company headquartered in Israel, with shares traded on the NASDAQ Capital Market and on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. Compugen was established as computational drug discovery service provider in 1993. Compugen originally acted as service provider for pharma companies, supplying its software and computational services to predict different types of biological phenomena. It had arrangements with big companies such as Novartis AG, Abbot Laboratories and Pfizer Inc. Subsequently, Compugen made a decision to become a drug development company with its own internal pipeline, and in 2010, decided to a focus on oncology and immunology. OncoMed Pharmaceuticals and Five Prime Therapeutics are among Compugen's competitors.
Vadastuximab talirine is an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) directed to CD33 (siglec-3) which is a transmembrane receptor expressed on cells of myeloid lineage. The experimental drug, being developed by Seattle Genetics, was in clinical trials for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
Seagen Inc. is an American biotechnology company focused on developing and commercializing innovative, empowered monoclonal antibody-based therapies for the treatment of cancer. The company, headquartered in Bothell, Washington, is the industry leader in antibody-drug conjugates or ADCs, a technology designed to harness the targeting ability of monoclonal antibodies to deliver cell-killing agents directly to cancer cells. Antibody-drug conjugates are intended to spare non-targeted cells and thus reduce many of the toxic effects of traditional chemotherapy, while potentially enhancing antitumor activity.
Sutro Biopharma, Inc. is a public biotechnology company headquartered in South San Francisco, California focused on clinical-stage drug discovery, development and manufacturing. Using a proprietary cell-free protein synthesis platform, Sutro is working on oncology therapeutics using protein engineering and rational design. Founded in 2003 under the name Fundamental Applied Biology, the company name changed to Sutro Biopharma in 2009. William Newell, CEO as of 2024, joined Sutro in January 2009.
ImmunoGen, Inc. was a biotechnology company focused on the development of antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) therapeutics for the treatment of cancer. ImmunoGen was founded in 1981 and was headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts.
BCN, also known as bicyclo[6.1.0]non-4-yne, is a copper-free click chemistry probe that enables highly efficient and completely orthogonal bioconjugation to complex macromolecules including peptides, nucleic acids and proteins, including monoclonal antibodies. The most recent and powerful application of this technology has been in the field of antibody-drug conjugates which results in targeted cancer therapeutics that have an improved therapeutic index, meaning they are more effective and better tolerated. BCN is well-suited for aqueous bioconjugations due to its high reactivity with its azide counterpart and its high hydrophilicity, relative to other metal-free click chemistry probes.
SOTIO Biotech is a Czech biotechnology company focused on clinical-stage research and development of innovative medicines for cancer with operations in Europe, North America, and Asia. The company has clinical programs which include a superagonist of the immuno-oncology target IL-15, a new generation of potent and stable antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), proprietary technology designed to improve on the efficacy of CAR T therapies and a platform to streamline and enhance personalized cell therapies.
Prescient Therapeutics Ltd is a clinical stage oncology company. The company is focused on the development of a universal CAR-T platform (OmniCAR), enhanced CAR-T cell manufacturing & function (CellPryme) and on two small molecule drug targeted therapies.
Optimer ligands are short synthetic oligonucleotide molecules composed of DNA or RNA that bind to a specific target molecule. They are engineered to bind their target molecules with affinity typically in the low nanomolar range. Optimers can be used as antibody mimetics in a range of applications, and have been optimized to increase their stability, reduce their molecular weight, and offer increased scalability and consistency in manufacture compared to standard aptamer molecules.
Halozyme Therapeutics is an American biotechnology company. It develops oncology therapies designed to target the tumor microenvironment.
Camidanlumab tesirine is an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) composed of a human antibody that binds to the protein CD25, conjugated to a pyrrolobenzodiazepine dimer toxin. The experimental drug, developed by ADC Therapeutics is being tested in clinical trials for the treatment of B-cell Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), and for the treatment of B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML).
Antibody-oligonucleotide conjugates or AOCs belong to a class of chimeric molecules combining in their structure two important families of biomolecules: monoclonal antibodies and oligonucleotides.
