OmniAb’s mission is to enable the rapid development of innovative antibody therapeutics by providing its leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology partners with cutting-edge antibody discovery technologies. By combining the expansive and diverse antibody repertoires generated from OmniAb’s groundbreaking four-species, in vivo discovery platform, with its cutting-edge, high-throughput screening tools and in silico capabilities, the company is delivering on its commitment of helping the industry discover the next-generation of therapeutic antibodies.
The central function of an animal’s immune system is to adaptively respond to a foreign target such as an invading pathogen through a process of diversification and selection that produces novel antibodies with high affinity, specificity, and expression. The human body has approximately a billion different antibodies circulating in the bloodstream, and an iterative process preferentially selects those that are naturally optimized to neutralize an antigen.
Drug developers have attempted to imitate this highly sophisticated biological process to produce therapeutic antibodies against pathogens and human targets using synthetic methods, yet, as of the end of 2022, 90% of regulatory-approved antibodies for human use have been derived from natural sources. This strong track record, industry momentum, and significant government investment has driven continued interest in antibody discovery, development, and methods that are continually sought to make the process more efficient. Historically, most approved therapeutic antibodies have been sourced from the immunization of animals necessitating subsequent ex-vivo engineering to humanize them to reduce their risk of immunogenicity and toxicity in humans. These additional downstream steps can increase cost, time, and technical risks associated with a discovery or development program.
Sourcing therapeutic antibodies from transgenic animals that have been engineered to produce human antibody sequences is an elegant solution to this problem because it harnesses the biological processes of animal immune systems to generate naturally optimized antibodies while simultaneously producing them in a human form, requiring minimal to no ex-vivo engineering.
“The historical success rates for antibodies have been better than small molecules and the industry as a whole is also getting better at developing antibody-based medicines,” comments Matt Foehr, CEO of OmniAb, Inc. “Our technological platform, with its efficient nature and wide-ranging results, aims to overcome the industry challenges that remain. It provides partners with antibody candidates based on unparalleled biological diversity, which we believe, over time, shorten discovery timelines, reduce costs, and considerably improve the chances of success.”
Leveraging Biological Intelligence(TM) for Diverse Antibody Discovery Solutions
With a team of world-renowned scientists at the helm, OmniAb has created an industry-leading portfolio of unique, transgenic animal hosts that provide diverse repertoires of humanized antibody candidates. This is all possible through the harnessing of Biological Intelligence, which refers to the ability of genetically engineered animals to generate optimized antibodies that can be developed into therapeutics. When paired with the company’s advanced screening technologies, it allows biopharmaceutical partners to discover highly promising antibody therapeutic candidates. Through natural optimization and minimal ex-vivo engineering, the antibodies generated have desirable affinity, specificity, developability, and functional performance.
At the core of OmniAb’s Biological Intelligence are OmniRat®, OmniMouse®, and OmniChicken®, all of which have been genetically modified to generate human antibodies, designed to accelerate the development of human therapeutic candidates. OmniRat® was launched in 2012 and produces a diverse repertoire of antibodies containing human idiotypes and immunological characteristics comparable to antibodies found in wild-type animals. As of the end of September 2023, three approved antibodies are OmniRat derived, and an additional 23 are in clinical development through partner organizations.
OmniMouse followed in 2014 and was designed using the same transgenes as its predecessor to deliver fully human antibodies. For partners preferring to work with mice, this platform offers a rapid solution to deliver fully human antibodies. OmniChicken was unveiled in 2016, the first engineered bird with an immune system that can efficiently create human sequence antibodies. Its evolutionary distance from humans and rodents enables the generation of diverse, affinity-matured antibodies against antigens that may be non-immunogenic in other mammals. Two antibodies – one derived from OmniMouse and one derived from OmniChicken – are in clinical development by OmniAb’s partners.
Finally, OmniTaurTM, launched in 2020, provides cow-derived ultralong CDR-H3 antibodies that contain a human framework, enabling the discovery of antibody sequences that can access deep or cryptic epitopes due to their smaller size and unique domain features. OmniTaurseeks to provide a solution to an industry-wide problem: targeting ion channels, transporters, and viral protein epitopes, inaccessible to conventional antibodies. OmniAb offers the most diverse host systems available in the antibody discovery sector. Together, OmniAb’s four-species platform harnesses the power of each animal’s unique immune recognition capabilities to generate diverse antibody repertoires, allowing a multi-angled approach to antibody discovery for the benefit of its partners’ campaigns.
Development of Bi- and Multi-specific Therapeutic Antibodies
OmniAb has also generated animal hosts for binding dual or multiple therapeutic targets. Both OmniFlic® and OmniClic® are common-light-chain rats and chickens, respectively, specifically designed to generate desirable candidates and facilitate development of bispecific antibodies. Three bispecific antibodies derived from OmniFlic are in clinical development.
Recently, the company expanded its multi-specific antibody discovery platform, with the generation of OmnidAb™, the first and only transgenic chicken, capable of producing human single-domain antibodies. These antibodies have an array of benefits for therapeutic development, including leveraging modularly to efficiently design multi-specific antibodies for a wide range of human diseases. Coupled with the benefits of chicken-based antibody discovery, OmnidAb represents a powerful new tool for targeting distinct epitopes and accessing new treatment modalities.
“There are a multitude of opportunities for single-domain antibodies due to the small and modular nature of the scaffold,” says Bill Harriman, Senior Vice President of Antibody Discovery at OmniAb, Inc. “And with the attributes that are built into our OmnidAb chicken platform, we are well positioned to accelerate the discovery of unique therapeutic molecules in this space.”
Building a Flexible, Partner-Centric Approach for the Future of Therapeutics
In addition to its antibody discovery solutions, OmniAb possesses extensive biological capabilities focused on developing small molecule and antibody therapeutics for ion channels and transporters. Both ion channels and transporters are key components across a variety of biological processes, having broad therapeutic applicability in diverse areas such as cancer, pain, and metabolic, neurological, and infectious diseases, among others. The company has also successfully integrated several other capabilities such as antigen generation, in silico discovery and optimization tools, and high throughput screening technologies, therefore offering partners a wide-ranging antibody discovery and development solution.
With this portfolio, OmniAb takes a tailored approach for every project, whether a partner wants to use OmniAb’s end-to-end discovery capabilities or combine specific technologies with their own internal workflows. To ensure that they continue to effectively serve the pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies of the future, OmniAb continues to expand its platform in order to push the frontiers of drug discovery technologies. This is done through internal investment in enabling technologies and potential strategic acquisitions. By broadening its capabilities in the antibody discovering continuum, OmniAb will be able to explore partnerships with new clients in new markets.
OmniAb At-a-Glance
As of September 30, 2023, OmniAb has 76 active partners with 314 active programs. 27 OmniAb-derived antibodies are in clinical development, one is under regulatory review, and three are approved products by OmniAb partners.
The company currently has approximately 109 full-time employees based in the United States, including 82 engaged in the fields of R&D; 37 members of the R&D team have PhDs. The company recognizes and takes care of its employees in a variety of ways, offering competitive pay, recognition, and an extensive benefit program. Moreover, the business has established a host of important initiatives dedicated to further employee and community engagement around meaningful endeavors advancing women in science, awareness about environmental issues, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Contact: Business Development, [email protected]
Company: OmniAb, Inc.
Web Address: https://www.omniab.com/
