PolyTherics said today it has merged with Antitope, a provider of antibody engineering and immunogenicity screening services, to create a combined provider of services and technologies for biopharmaceutical development.
PolyTherics said it will raise up to £13.5 million ($20.8 million) to acquire Antitope, as well as provide working capital for the new company. The company’s combined portfolio will include conjugation technologies designed to produce more stable and homogeneous antibody-drug conjugates, technologies to optimize the pharmacokinetics of biologics, technologies for immunogenicity screening, technologies to re-engineer antibodies and proteins to reduce their immunogenicity, and cell-line development.
The new PolyTherics said its client base will include “many of the world's top companies,” none of which it named. The company expects to grow revenues through PolyTherics’ feasibility studies as well as Antitope’s services—as well as through undisclosed predefined milestone payments based on license agreements for the conjugation and deimmunization technologies. “These licenses also have the potential to provide future royalties on a portfolio of products, which utilize the group's proprietary technologies,” the combined company said in a statement.
John Burt, D.Phil., ACMA, will remain CEO of PolyTherics, while Antitope’s CEO and CSO Matthew Baker, Ph.D., will hold the CSO position in the new company. PolyTherics said the company will retain its base, management, and operational structure at the Babraham Research Campus, near Cambridge, U.K.
Imperial Innovations led the investment and brought in a new investor, Invesco Perpetual, using additional funds from Mercia Fund Management and Advantage Enterprise & Innovation Fund.