Twist Bioscience Expands Partnership with Invetx to Include Discovery of Best-in-Class Antibodies to Treat Multiple Diseases in Cats and Dogs

November 18, 2021 |

6 min read

Twist Bioscience Corporation and Invetx today announced an extension to their existing antibody therapeutic partnership.

Nov. 18, 2021 13:00 UTC

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. & BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Twist Bioscience (NASDAQ: TWST), a company enabling customers to succeed through its offering of high-quality synthetic DNA using its silicon platform, and Invetx, a pioneer in protein-based therapeutics for animal health, today announced an extension to their existing antibody therapeutic partnership. The extended agreement covers the addition of next-generation synthetic antibody phage display technology for the discovery of novel monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) for the treatment of multiple diseases in cats and dogs.

“Our initial partnership with Twist to develop canine and feline TAO (Twist Antibody Optimization) platforms and use them to optimize development of our veterinary biotherapeutics has been very successful,” said Juergen Horn, PhD, chief executive officer of Invetx. “With this expanded agreement, we are adding complementary in vitro synthetic antibody discovery capabilities to our existing in vivo platform. This combination enables us to generate best-in-class therapeutics for an even broader range of targets to treat chronic and serious conditions in dogs and cats.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Twist Biopharma, a division of Twist Bioscience, leverages its “Library of Libraries,” a panel of synthetic antibody phage display libraries to identify potential therapeutic antibody candidates against specific feline and canine disease targets provided by Invetx. Twist has already generated fully feline and canine synthetic antibody libraries and from them, has begun to identify drug candidates. Twist will work with Invetx to validate and optimize any resulting new antibody candidates.

“Our continued and expanded partnership with Invetx illustrates the power and broad applicability of our antibody discovery technology,” said Emily M. Leproust, PhD, chief executive officer and co-founder of Twist Bioscience. “Animal health, especially pet care, is an important and fast-growing market. As a dog lover and owner of multiple dogs, I’m personally pleased to see the development of targeted biologics in animal health and at Twist, we love supporting Invetx as they aim to extend and improve quality of life of our pets.”

About Invetx

Invetx is building the world’s premier biotechnology platform for protein-based therapeutics in animal health to transform standards of care in veterinary medicine. The company recently launched its first clinical field study in dogs with IVX-01, a proprietary, novel, fully canine, high-affinity and half-life extended monoclonal antibody in September 2021.

Invetx completed a $25.5 million Series A financing in 2020 with investors Anterra Capital, Casdin Capital and funds managed by Tekla Capital Management, LLC. Strategic investment partners are AbCellera, a global technology company with a centralized operating system for antibody discovery, and WuXi Biologics, a global company with leading biologics technology platforms. Invetx is a private company headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts. For more information, see www.invetx.com.

About Twist Biopharma

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. This 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.

About Twist Bioscience Corporation

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.

Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained herein, including without limitation Twist’s ability to successfully discover novel therapeutic antibodies against disease targets in dogs and cats, 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. Such 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 of 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 could make the products Twist Bioscience is developing obsolete or non-competitive; the retention of employees of acquired companies and the ability of Twist Bioscience to successfully integrate acquired companies and to achieve expected benefits, 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 further 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 Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on August 9, 2021, 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 because of new information, future events or otherwise.