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Leading global antibody discovery companies FairJourney Biologics and Iontas announce partnership in search for SARS-CoV-2 treatment

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Porto.

FairJourney Biologics, leading global antibody discovery companies, founded in Porto, announced a partnership with Iontas, one of the main healthcare manufacturing solutions Company in Cambridge, UK . 

The aim is to bring together complementary services and technology to enable faster identification of effective antibodies that will be the most successful in the development phase.

FairJourney's premier global technical expertise and extensive immune antibody libraries and Iontas' next generation Mammalian Display technology will allow scientists from both companies to join forces in the race to identify antibodies and ultimately in the development of safe and effective treatments.

Parties that would normally be competitors, combine forces to isolate highly specific, neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 antibodies displaying high affinity and preferential biophysical characteristics.

RNA from recovering patients, provided by Portugal's Instituto de Medicina Molecular, will be a key source of antibody genes used for the identification of target antibodies.

This combination will enable the newly created partnership to isolate highly specific, neutralizing SARS-CoV-2 antibodies displaying high affinity and preferential biophysical characteristics.

This partnership was highlighted by BioProcess International online Journal.

The technology package will facilitate the identification of the right antibody without the need for additional optimization, thereby reducing the risk of delays during development and subsequent scale up to manufacturing. 

"Given the current pandemic, and our expertise in exploring the 1,400+ immune libraries built at FairJourney, we felt compelled to engage in an antibody-based intervention for COVID-19. In this challenging environment we are proud to come together with John and his team to combine our individual strengths for a common goal", commented Maria Pajuelo, Chief Scientific Officer of FairJourney.

John McCafferty, Chief Executive Officer of Lontas alo stated that "We are delighted to have formed this partnership with FairJourney. Collectively, we felt it important to apply the best platforms in identifying treatments against COVID-19. We believe by using a broad repertoire of antibody libraries and mammalian display, we can find therapeutic candidates that will progress through manufacturing and ultimately into patients in a speedy timeframe."

FairJourney Biologics, a fee-for-service company, was founded in 2012 in Porto and has been profitable since 2013. This fast growth and its financial independence is a market validation of the excellence in antibody discovery and engineering and a guarantee of stable and strong partnerships. The company is currently located at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Porto, but it will soon a set up in the industrial zone, where the new lab is being built.