Lonza, a global development and manufacturing partner to the pharma, biotech and nutrition industries, entered into an agreement with ABL Bio, a Korean biologics company with a focus on bispecific antibodies for immuno-oncology and neurodegenerative diseases. The collaboration agreement supports the development and manufacturing of ABL Bio’s new bispecific antibody product.

As part of the collaboration, Lonza provides ABL Bio with an integrated service offering to support its bispecific antibody candidate through the journey from DNA to potential investigational new drug (IND) application. ABL Bio gains access to Lonza’s DNA-to-IND program which is designed to support biotech companies in realizing the full potential of bispecific drug candidates – accelerating their path to clinic and developing a robust, scalable manufacturing process.

Jean-Christophe Hyvert, president of biologics, Lonza said: “With the biologics pipeline evolving towards more complex protein formats, bi- and multi-specific molecules are a growing part of Lonza’s portfolio. For more than 35 years, our teams have built extensive experience and capabilities in this area, and we are committed to supporting our customers on their unique journey to IND. This collaboration will provide ABL Bio with greater flexibility and speed on the path to commercialization. We look forward to working together to bring this innovative therapeutic antibody candidate one step closer to patients.”

Sanghoon Lee, CEO ABL Bio said: “This collaboration with Lonza, a world-leading contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO), is another leap forward in ABL Bio’s journey to becoming a global top-tier bio company. As Lonza’s CDMO service is not limited to bispecific antibodies, ABL Bio will diversify its next-generation pipelines such as ADCs to increase growth potential and lead the antibody field.”

Beginning in March 2023 at Lonza’s Biologics site in Slough (UK), the project involves the use of Lonza’s GS Xceed expression system which includes GS PiggyBac, a highly efficient transposon-based gene integration technology that is ideally suited to support the expression of bispecific and other difficult-to-express proteins.