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Twist Bioscience and Astellas Enter into Multitarget Antibody Discovery Research Collaboration
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Rhea-AI Summary
Twist Bioscience (NASDAQ: TWST) has announced a research collaboration with Astellas Pharma Inc to discover antibodies targeting diseases with high unmet medical needs. This partnership, following a successful initial collaboration, highlights Twist's antibody discovery capabilities through its Library of Libraries. Under the agreement, Twist will receive an upfront payment, project-specific research fees, and earn up to $11 million USD per product for clinical milestones, along with royalties on product sales. Astellas will handle product development and commercialization.
Positive
Research collaboration with Astellas Pharma enhances Twist's antibody discovery capabilities.
Potential to earn up to $11 million per product through milestone payments.
Ongoing relationship with Astellas builds upon successful prior collaboration.
Negative
Twist relies on Astellas for product development and commercialization, limiting control over final outcomes.
Dependence on milestone payments could introduce revenue uncertainty.
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--
Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ: TWST), a company enabling customers to succeed through its offering of high-quality synthetic DNA using its silicon platform, today announced a research collaboration with Astellas Pharma Inc. (TSE: 4503, President and CEO: Kenji Yasukawa, Ph.D., “Astellas”) to discover antibodies against multiple targets of interest to develop curative therapies for patients suffering from diseases that lack treatment options.
“This second collaboration with Astellas demonstrates the power of our antibody discovery capabilities. The depth and breadth of our Library of Libraries enables highly potent antibodies, often missed using other technologies, to be identified across multiple potential therapeutic areas,” said Emily M. Leproust, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Twist Bioscience. “We are looking forward to continuing our working relationship with Astellas and building on the progress made to date in our first collaboration.”
Under the terms of the agreement, Twist will conduct antibody discovery activities against multiple targets identified by Astellas. In addition to an upfront payment and project specific research fees, Twist will be eligible to receive up to $11 million USD per product through payments associated with specific clinical and commercial milestones. Twist will also be eligible to receive royalty payments on product sales. Astellas will be responsible for the development, manufacturing and commercialization of any such products.
About Astellas
Astellas Pharma Inc. is a pharmaceutical company conducting business in more than 70 countries around the world. We are promoting the Focus Area Approach that is designed to identify opportunities for the continuous creation of new drugs to address diseases with high unmet medical needs by focusing on Biology and Modality. Furthermore, Astellas is also looking beyond our foundational Rx focus to create Rx+® healthcare solutions that combine its expertise and knowledge with cutting-edge technology in different fields of external partners. Through these efforts, Astellas stands on the forefront of healthcare change to turn innovative science into VALUE for patients. For more information, please visit Astellas’ website at https://www.astellas.com/en.
About Twist Biopharma (The Biologics Discovery and Optimization Division of Twist Bioscience)
Twist Biopharma combines high-throughput DNA synthesis technology with deep expertise in antibody engineering to provide end-to-end antibody discovery solutions across the preclinical continuum and tailored to our partner’s specific needs. By leveraging our unique ability to manufacture DNA at scale, we can construct proprietary antibody libraries precisely designed to match sequences that occur in the human body. Our Library of Libraries gives our partners an integral and unbiased resource for antibody therapeutic discovery and optimization. This precise and rational approach to library fabrication combined with sophisticated bioinformatics and software expertise expedites antibody discovery by decreasing risk, increasing speed, and lowering the failure rate for antibody therapeutic development. Our automated screening and panning processes enable us to identify high affinity leads that our partners can move forward into the clinic. We also offer supporting development capabilities, including IgG conversion, expression, purification, biophysical characterization, and functional characterization.
Twist Bioscience is a leading and rapidly growing synthetic biology and genomics company that has developed a disruptive DNA synthesis platform to industrialize the engineering of biology. The core of the platform is a proprietary technology that pioneers a new method of manufacturing synthetic DNA by “writing” DNA on a silicon chip. Twist is leveraging its unique technology to manufacture a broad range of synthetic DNA-based products, including synthetic genes, tools for next-generation sequencing (NGS) preparation, and antibody libraries for drug discovery and development. Twist is also pursuing longer-term opportunities in digital data storage in DNA and biologics drug discovery. Twist makes products for use across many industries including healthcare, industrial chemicals, agriculture and academic research.
This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained herein are forward-looking statements reflecting the current beliefs and expectations of management made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including, but not limited to, statements regarding the ability of the partnership to discover antibodies against multiple targets of interest to develop curative therapies for patients suffering from diseases that lack treatment options and the achievement of any clinical or commercial milestones. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that may cause Twist Bioscience’s actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the risks and uncertainties relating to COVID-19; the ability to attract new customers and retain and grow sales from existing customers; risks and uncertainties of rapidly changing technologies and extensive competition in synthetic biology that could make the products Twist Bioscience is developing obsolete or non-competitive; uncertainties of the retention of significant customers; the ability of Twist Bioscience to successfully integrate acquired companies, including Abveris, and to achieve expected benefits from acquisitions; supply chain and other disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic or otherwise; risks of third party claims alleging infringement of patents and proprietary rights or seeking to invalidate Twist Bioscience’s patents or proprietary rights; and the risk that Twist Bioscience’s proprietary rights may be insufficient to protect its technologies. For a description of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, as well as risks relating to Twist Bioscience’s business in general, see Twist Bioscience’s risk factors set forth in Twist Bioscience’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on November 28, 2022 and subsequent filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date hereof, and Twist Bioscience specifically disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
