Accelerating Biotherapeutic Discovery

Abstract

A new way of thinking and working has evolved for the discovery of therapeutic antibodies. Until recently, large numbers of antibodies were generated, only for a relatively small fraction to be sampled and engineered for further lead generation. Now, high throughput SPR (Surface Plasmon Resonance) facilitates a paradigm shift in antibody screening, enabling higher information content assays to be conducted earlier in the research pipeline to streamline lead selection. This essentially combines screening and detailed characterization in the same step.

Generating antibody libraries in an intelligent manner, so that they contain sequences more likely to produce marketable medicines, forms part of this new methodology. High throughput SPR provides a high-throughput and high-resolution method for characterizing the binding interactions of hundreds of antibodies in parallel, enabling deeper exploration of a library’s kinetic and epitope diversity from the start of the drug discovery process. The traditional role of SPR as a de facto standard for performing high-quality kinetics but in limited throughput positioned it as a secondary tool. Performing SPR in a high-throughput array format shifts its role upstream in drug discovery where it facilitates the identification of near-optimal leads within large libraries, requiring minimal engineering and thus expediting library-to-lead timelines.

This white paper outlines the challenges associated with the discovery and development of therapeutic antibodies – an especially promising and lucrative field for the biopharmaceutical industry. It discusses the benefits of using large antibody panels for screening and interrogating the epitope diversity of the whole panel in early-stage using high throughput SPR to accelerate discovery.