When we hear that a person has quirks, we expect to be charmed. But when we hear that a cell-based assay has quirks, we expect to be frustrated. Quirks in cell-based assays tend to complicate drug development tasks such as high-throughput screening, rational drug design, and lead optimization. So, in drug development, cell-based assays should avoid quirkiness in favor of consistency.

Ensuring consistency is Multispan’s reason for being. “Each assay and each cell line has a different personality, and different things can make each one respond in a nice or not-so-nice way,” Helena Mancebo, PhD, CEO of Multispan, tells GEN. “We understand that, and we worked out how to achieve consistent performance.”

AI enhances sustainability

Multispan prides itself on developing physiologically relevant cell-based assays. Its specialty is designing assays that target G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs), although its catalog includes many additional products and targets. “Our assays are ready to go,” Mancebo asserts. “[They can] plug into any drug discovery program whether it involves large-molecule antibodies or small molecules.”

When Multispan develops cell lines and assays, the company finds that artificial intelligence (AI) is an important tool. “It’s time for the biopharmaceutical industry to leverage AI more fully to enhance both drug discovery research efficiency and sustainability,” Mancebo argues. “We are a data-driven industry, and AI can play a big role in that. AI can make drug discovery more sustainable in terms of costs and timelines, as well as environmentally.”

Mancebo points to the efficiencies of scale that ensue when AI focuses development efforts to 100 of the most likely candidates, down from the million or so compounds identified through traditional high-throughput screening. Such tight focusing reduces the number of experiments that must be performed, which keeps a substantial quantity of plastics from going to landfills or incinerators.

According to Mancebo, Multispan’s role in the drug development community is “to provide high-quality data in an unparalleled turnaround time, and to allow the drug discovery process to be more efficient and more sustainable.” She adds that next-day turnaround is a “standard process” for Multispan, even though it is very difficult and “something that typical contract research organizations are unable to do routinely.”

To keep turnaround times short, Multispan focuses on assay execution. “In-house, we’ve developed processes that are very specific to running these assays,” Mancebo remarks. “That level of focus and obsession for quality and turnaround time allows us to do this very differently from what’s considered the industry norm.” The processes themselves are proprietary, but a key feature involves maintaining the recombinant cell clone’s native pharmacology so that it can deliver robust, physiologically relevant data from screenings.

Stability and dynamism

These processes have been honed during Multispan’s 20 years in business. Mancebo formed Multispan a few years after she completed her doctoral training at Yale University. “I’m very grateful I wrote a business plan around GPCRs,” she says, “It was the most validated class of drug targets 20 years ago, and it is still among the most prolific for drug targets today.”

Mancebo notes that the company has grown organically since its earliest days. “One of the things I’m most grateful for is to be able to work with a community of people who have such passion for the work they do, and to be able to be a part of their teams,” she elaborates. “That’s been a very rich learning experience. I wouldn’t trade this aspect of my job for anything.”

Succeeding at difficult jobs

Recently, Multispan was asked to develop an assay for a company that had spun out of one of the leading research institutes in the United States. “The company wanted to look at a very nuanced biology,” Mancebo relates. “It was bifurcated within the same cell line, so the drug would hit one biology but not touch the other. It was a very tricky assay to develop. You want one cell line to have two different pathways and to work equally robustly.”

The spinoff company had tried unsuccessfully to work with a large contract research organization. Then the spinoff’s CEO, on a colleague’s recommendation, contacted Mancebo. “We took on the project and developed a successful, specialized cell clone for both assays,” she recalls. “Word traveled back to me that this CEO spoke very highly of the impact of Multispan’s assays on his company. We’re very proud. We were just doing our job.”

Multispan’s services include drug discovery, high-throughput screening, cell line engineering, cell banking and scale up, and GPCR antibody profiling, as well as cell assay development. Its approach seems designed to minimize the developmental distractions, thus making every cell line, assay, and screening plate count.

Mancebo and Multispan value empathy, integrity, and productivity. In practice, that means not only talking about those values, but also actively displaying them. For example, she says that in the company’s discussions, whether they occur internally or with clients or collaborators, individual challenges are regarded as shared challenges, which helps drug discovery become more efficient, sustainable, and cost-effective. “This is a mission of ours,” she declares, “and we will continue upholding these values.”

The power of collaboration

To date, Multispan has developed over 1,000 clonal stable cell lines, and it offers over 1,600 assay tools and reagents. “As an entrepreneur and as a scientist, collaboration is important,” Mancebo stresses. “Working together with scientists who have shared missions and are passionate about their work strengthens each of those involved in the project.”

“For Multispan to become an AI drug design company alone would be extremely inefficient,” Mancebo continues. Correspondingly, it would be inefficient for an AI company to try to become a cell assay company. Better for each to leverage the other’s strengths through collaboration. “This is the best solution,” Mancebo says. “We plan to stay focused on what we’re good at, which is developing and running cell assays. We have at least 10 times more capacity of screening compounds, especially in collaboration with AI, and we would like to take on more.”

Multispan has a twofold expansion strategy. One part is focused on the company’s own market and exposure; the other part, on the company’s community. “If we can grow as a team, by expanding partnerships and working more closely together, I really see that as the future,” Mancebo observes. “It’s not about one company doing everything.”