Boehringer Ingelheim and Twist Bioscience Team Up for Therapeutic Antibody Discovery

Twist Bioscience, a company that provides synthetic DNA libraries, announced a research collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim on Sept. 9, 2021. The collaboration will allow Boehringer Ingelheim to use Twist’s antibody libraries to discover therapeutic antibodies for various targets.

Twist will use its ``Library of Libraries,” a panel of synthetic antibody phage display libraries derived entirely from sequences that exist in the human body, to identify potential therapeutic antibody candidates. The two companies will then work together to validate and optimize any new antibody candidates.

Under the agreement, Twist will receive an upfront payment for each program entry and has the potential to earn up to a total of $710 million in success-based milestone payments. Boehringer Ingelheim retains exclusive worldwide rights to develop and commercialize any resulting therapeutic antibodies.

“Boehringer Ingelheim believes [that] Twist’s ability to generate potent, diverse therapeutic antibodies by mining its comprehensive libraries, combined with our extensive capabilities and experience in drug discovery and development, will enable us to deliver breakthrough opportunities to patients,” said Clive R. Wood, senior corporate vice-president and global head of discovery research at Boehringer Ingelheim, in a company press release. “We look forward to working with Twist on molecular targets in a broad range of disease areas.”

“This discovery collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim covering numerous targets truly illustrates the power of our antibody libraries,” said Emily M. Leproust, CEO and co-founder of Twist, in the press release. “We have the ability to generate precise antibodies to a diverse range of targets, which together with Boehringer Ingelheim’s strength in drug development capabilities, could mean multiple new more personalized treatments in the future for patients.”

Source: Twist Bioscience