Specifica Validates Best-in-Class Status for in vitro Antibody Discovery Platform in Two Key Peer Reviewed Publications

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In the Mabs article 1 , Specifica explains the scientific rationale behind the new Gen 3 platform. Specifica’s Gen 3 antibody libraries combine the use of well-behaved antibodies already validated in the clinic as frameworks, with scaffold-compatible binding loop sequences (CDRs) from natural antibodies, devoid of most sequence liabilities to improve developability. In selection campaigns with the Gen 3 platform, both phage and yeast display are employed. The results described in this article demonstrate the power of the platform to directly generate a broad diversity of specific antibodies (100-1000 different clusters) with high affinity (20% subnanomolar) and few developability issues.

The Nature Communications article 2 , published this week, compares antibodies generated against SARS-CoV-2 using the Gen 3 platform with hundreds of other antibodies described in the literature, from over 50 different laboratories. Specifica’s Gen 3 antibodies out-performed all other antibodies sourced from naïve libraries, showed better performance than the majority of immune-sourced antibodies, and were comparable to the very best immune SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in terms of affinity and viral neutralization, with developability properties as good as the best already approved antibodies.

“These two papers validate the Gen 3 platform’s best-in-class status, fulfilling the original promise of naive antibody libraries made over 30 years ago, namely, to eliminate the use of animals or immune sources to generate powerful antibodies,” said Andrew Bradbury, co-founder and CSO of Specifica.

About Specifica

Specifica is a rapidly growing antibody engineering company providing best-in-class in vitro antibody discovery libraries, selection and informatics tools, and discovery and optimization services to the pharmaceutical industry. Specifica’s patented 5 Generation 3 Antibody Library Discovery Platform yields drug-like antibodies, with broad diversity, high affinities, and few biophysical liabilities directly from selections, minimizing the need for downstream affinity and biophysical engineering. In addition to in-house antibody library designs, Specifica also collaborates closely with partners to create custom libraries in which essential elements are optimized according to partner needs. The power of the Gen 3 platform may be accessed by engaging Specifica to execute antibody discovery campaigns, or by full transfer of the platform technology in-house. In 2021, Specifica executed agreements with 10 new companies, and initiated 16 new discovery and optimization programs, expanding on 5 of its existing partnerships. Additionally, in cooperation with its software partner OpenEye, Specifica lauched AbXtract, a new suite of antibody informatics tools. Specifica is headquartered in Santa Fe, New Mexico. For more information, please visit www.specifica.bio and follow Specifica on Twitter and LinkedIn.

1 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19420862.2021.1980942 (2021)2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-27799-z (2022).3 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41573-021-00079-7 (2021).4 https://www.fortunebusinessinsights.com/monoclonal-antibody-therapy-market-102734 (2021).5 US patent 10,954,508 (2020).

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Contacts

Andrew Bradbury, CSOSpecifica, Inc.505-216-2445

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