AbCellera and IGM Biosciences Announce Multi-Year Antibody Discovery Collaboration

AbCellera and IGM Biosciences, Inc. announced that they have entered into a multi-year, multi-target strategic research collaboration and license agreement to facilitate the discovery and development of novel IgM antibodies. AbCellera will generate panels of antibodies for multiple therapeutic targets identified by IGM using its full-stack, AI-powered antibody discovery technology, and IGM will have the rights to develop and commercialize the novel antibodies resulting from this collaboration. Financial terms of the collaboration were not disclosed.

“We believe that AbCellera’s technology will assist us in rapidly identifying the best antibodies against a large number of agonist targets, as well as other historically difficult targets, for both oncology and immunology applications,” said Fred Schwarzer, CEO of IGM Biosciences. “Engineered IgM and IgA antibodies may be able to overcome some of the limitations of the current IgG-based therapeutics, and this partnership demonstrates the depth of our commitment to ensuring that the potential of our IgM and IgA technology platform is fully realized in areas of high unmet medical need.”

“We believe partnerships like these, which connect breakthrough science with the teams and technologies needed to move forward quickly, are essential in expediting new therapeutic approaches against complex diseases,” said Carl Hansen, Ph.D., President and CEO of AbCellera. “We look forward to working closely with IGM’s innovative team with the goal of accelerating their discovery efforts against high-value disease targets.”

AbCellera sources, searches, decodes and analyzes natural immune responses to identify antibodies for next-generation therapeutics. A modern operating system for antibody discovery, the platform integrates patented and proprietary technologies to advance the development of existing and new biological modalities, from monoclonal, multi-specific, and single-domain antibodies, to bioconjugates, gene-encoded biologics, and cell therapies. IGM’s proprietary platform expands upon the inherent characteristics of IgM and IgA antibodies and is designed to enable the rapid development of engineered therapeutic antibodies. IGM’s technology allows it to create IgM and IgA antibodies with higher affinity and avidity than naturally occurring IgM and IgA antibodies, and is designed to overcome the historical difficulties in recombinantly expressing and manufacturing IgM and IgA antibodies.