China’s ShangPharma and Dutch biotech firm Harbour Antibodies signed a collaborative licensing agreement through which ShangPharma will offer clients therapeutic antibody development capabilities based on Harbour’s transgenic mouse-based technology for the discovery of fully human antibodies. Through the agreement Harbour will provide ShangPharma’s Shanghai facility with human immunoglobulin gene transgenic mice that produce H2L2 IgG antibodies comprising two heavy and two light chains, with fully human variable regions.

“We are delighted to partner with ShangPharma to expand client access to one of our transgenic mouse antibody discovery platforms,” comments Frank Grosveld, Ph.D., Harbour cofounder and director. “The use of transgenic mice draws upon the natural immune response and has proved to be a very reliable route to discovering potential human antibody-based medicines. There is a need for new transgenic mouse platforms to meet the continuing clinical need for therapeutic antibody discovery. The Harbour transgenic mouse platform meets this need.”

Harbour was established in 2006 to commercialize transgenic mouse human antibody platforms developed at the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. As well as its platform for generating fully H2L2 antibodies, the firm has generated developed transgenic mouse strains for the derivation of second generation human and camelized human heavy chain only antibodies (HCAbs), soluble human VH domains, and VH domain antibody complexes for use both as research tools and as potential therapeutic candidates.

CRO ShangPharma offers a range of integrated drug discovery and development services to the pharma and biotech industries, which span discovery chemistry, biology, and preclinical development capabilities, coupled with pharmaceutical development and biologics expertise. 

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