Arizona Tribune - AbTherx, Single Cell Technology, and Vaccinex Announce Collaboration to Tackle Challenging Antibody Drug Targets

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA / ACCESS Newswire / May 13, 2025 / AbTherx, Inc., a biotechnology company with innovative transgenic technologies that simplify and accelerate antibody discovery, today announced a collaboration with Single Cell Technology and Vaccinex. AbTherx and Single Cell Technology will incorporate Vaccinex's ActivMAb^® Technology into their respective workflows for complex drug targets.

AbTherx's antibody discovery platform is built on two decades of experience and utilizes evolutionary intelligence to identify diverse and developable human antibody sequences. This collaboration harnesses AbTherx's suite of next-generation transgenic technologies to advance drug development. The Atlas Full Human Diversity Mouse, an updated industry standard, generates human antibodies with the affinities and diversity required for efficient and successful therapeutic development. The Atlas Binary Fixed Light Chain Mouse streamlines the engineering, development, and manufacturing of bispecific antibodies, optimizing the process for greater efficiency. Meanwhile, the Atlas Long CDR3 Mouse leverages a rare, naturally occurring phenomenon to simplify the targeting of complex transmembrane proteins, such as GPCRs and ion channels, enhancing the precision of antibody-based therapeutics. "GPCRs and ion channels are validated drug targets, but limited extracellular domain access, difficulty producing stable, functional antigens, and the lack of antibody technologies to access deep pockets, have made these challenging targets for antibody discovery," said Justin Mika, Chief Executive Officer of AbTherx. "This partnership is an exciting example of how AbTherx is developing a multifaceted approach to overcome these challenges."

Single Cell Technology will apply its proprietary AbTheneum single B cell screening platform to mine differentiated antibodies from the Atlas Mice. AbTheneum captures comprehensive functional and sequence data from antibody-secreting cells in parallel, enabling rapid identification of rare, high-performing hits. "AbTheneum's high-resolution discovery approach is ideally suited to extract the full potential of AbTherx's advanced mouse platforms," said Chun-Nan Chen, Chief Executive Officer at Single Cell Technology. "We have over a decade of experience across a wide range of targets, and we're proud to contribute our expertise to this collaborative effort."

Vaccinex's proprietary ActivMAb^® Technology enables expression of functional, properly folded complex proteins such as GPCRs and ion channels on the relatively simple membrane of poxvirus, providing a source of antigen for various antibody discovery strategies. "We believe that our technology is a powerful component of antibody discovery strategies targeting complex membrane proteins," said Ernest Smith, General Manager, ActivMAb of Vaccinex. "These relationships underscore ActivMAb's unique ability to address previously hard-to-drug targets in a format ideally suited for antibody discovery."

Under the terms of the agreement, each party has the right to develop and commercialize therapeutic antibodies resulting from the collaboration.

About AbTherx

AbTherx is advancing medicine with revolutionary technologies that accelerate and enable therapeutic antibody discovery. Through an exclusive license from Gilead Sciences, AbTherx has released Atlas™ Mice, a suite of novel transgenic technologies designed for unmatched performance and Freedom to Operate. For over 20 years, a core group of AbTherx's scientists have worked together to push the boundaries of antibody discovery technologies, resulting in more than 1,000 successful discovery campaigns and the development of 13 marketed therapeutics. AbTherx's industry-leading team creates transformative solutions to overcome the most demanding challenges in delivering innovative medicines. Committed to making its technologies accessible to all, AbTherx offers flexible partnering models that meet the needs of drug developers of all sizes. For more information, please visit www.abtherx.com.

About Single Cell Technology, Inc.

Single Cell Technology is an antibody discovery R&D provider with a pioneering platform that can both accelerate the process and capture all available data. Its team expertly deploys the patented AbTheneum™ technology-which combines innovations in multiple fields to overcome discovery challenges and move campaigns ahead quickly and efficiently. Single Cell has been delivering value for ten years to pharmaceutical clients, tailoring each campaign to the target biology. Several antibodies discovered by Single Cell have entered clinical trials, validating the quality of antibodies identified using AbTheneum™ screening. Learn more at www.singlecelltechnology.com.

About ActivMAb and Vaccinex, Inc.

ActivMAb is a proprietary fusion protein technology that enables direct incorporation of multi-pass membrane proteins into the membrane of two antigenically distinct poxviruses. The protein of interest is correctly folded and expressed in the cell-derived viral membrane and does not require any detergents or refolding before downstream use. Antigen expressing virus can be readily purified and used for antibody selection with any in vitro display platform such that alternating between the two strains eliminates filters out anti-viral antibodies. In addition, direct immunization with antigen virions produces strong anti-antigen responses in vivo, possibly due to adjuvant properties of the virus.

Vaccinex, Inc. is pioneering a differentiated approach to treating slowly progressive neurodegenerative diseases and cancer through the inhibition of semaphorin 4D (SEMA4D). The Company's lead drug candidate, pepinemab, blocks SEMA4D, a potent biological effector that it believes prevents infiltration and activation of immune cells in tumors and triggers damaging inflammation in neurodegenerative diseases. In oncology, pepinemab is being evaluated in combination with KEYTRUDA^® in the Phase 1b/2 KEYNOTE-B84 study in recurrent or metastatic head and neck cancer (HNSCC) and in combination with BAVENCIO^® in a Phase 1b/2 study in patients with metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma (PDAC). The oncology clinical program also includes several investigator-sponsored studies in solid tumors including breast cancer and melanoma. We believe pepinemab has also given promising results as a monotherapy in the Phase 1b/2 SIGNAL-AD study in Alzheimer's Disease, and the Company has previously published promising Phase 2 data suggesting a slowing of cognitive decline in Huntington's disease.

AbTherx Media Contact

Stacey Borders
[email protected]

Vaccinex Media Contact

Elizabeth Evans
[email protected]

SOURCE: AbTherx, Inc

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W.Stewart--AT