Two against one

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. & GOLETA, Calif.—Twist Bioscience Corp., which provides high-quality synthetic DNA, and Serimmune Inc., a company focused on the functional antibody repertoire’s role in human disease, have entered into a collaboration to identify and evaluate SARS-CoV-2 therapeutic antibody candidates from Twist libraries in an effort to better treat COVID-19.

The collaboration will evaluate existing Twist antibody candidates that bind with high affinity to either SARS-CoV-2 S1 spike protein or the human ACE2 cellular receptor, using Serimmune’s Serum Epitope Repertoire Analysis (SERA) platform, which maps the antigenic targets of antibody repertoires.

Epitopes identified in the first phase will then be used to re-screen Twist’s proprietary synthetic antibody discovery libraries to identify and evaluate new candidates while at the same time further increasing the specificity of antibody candidates. Twist will be responsible for advancing all antibodies resulting from the collaboration.

“Beginning with our first efforts in January, Serimmune has focused on understanding the role of antibody response in SARS-CoV-2 infection. Having evaluated a diverse set of samples from subjects with diverse symptoms, we are beginning to more fully understand the immunogenic epitopes associated with natural infection,” said Noah Nasser, CEO of Serimmune. “Twist’s fully human antibody libraries contain a vast and diverse collection of potential therapeutic candidates, and we look forward to providing valuable SARS-CoV-2 epitope information to help them select and advance the most promising candidates to treat this devastating disease.”

“We are working feverishly to move our antibody leads through characterization, while at the same time implementing the best tools to optimize the properties of each antibody,” added Dr. Emily Leproust, CEO and co-founder of Twist Bioscience. “Serimmune’s platform will allow us to accelerate our efforts in a targeted and methodical manner to further increase the specificity of our antibodies, continuing our sprint in delivering new therapeutics to treat COVID-19.”