Sino–German deal on antibody discovery

Research collaboration

Protagen AG, a provider of protein research services, has agreed a collaboration to develop antibodies against liver proteins with the Centre for Applied Proteomics (ZAP), in Dortmund, Schunde Kangdi Antibody Biotech, in Foshan, China, and the Beijing Proteome Research Centre (PRC).

Protagen’s role will be to use its UNIchip platform technology to develop tailor-made protein biochips for analysing antibody binding specificities, as well as any off-target activities of the antibody candidates.

ZAP will use these UNIchips to assess around 200 monoclonal antibodies generated by Schunde Kangdi Antibody Biotech and Beijing PRC, selecting the most promising as therapeutic candidates and for use in diagnostics.

The industrial partners will share the worldwide commercialisation rights for any antibodies progressed into development.

Professor Helmut E. Meyer, Head of the Human Brain Proteome Project and Director of ZAP, and Professor Fuchu He, Head of the Human Liver Proteome Project and president of the Beijing PRC, will share the scientific leadership on the project. The two institutes previously worked together on the Human Proteome Organisation.

Christoph Hüls, CEO of Protagen, said this is the first collaboration the antibody field between Germany and China where research institutes and biotech companies from both countries are equally involved.

ZAP is a consortium of three partners: the Medical Proteome Centre at Ruhr-University Bochum, the University of Dortmund and the Biomedicine Centre Dortmund. Set up as part of Dortmund’s innovation platform, ZAP specialises in developing technologies for quantitative protein analysis, enabling pharmaceutical companies to perform more accurate, targeted analyses of proteomes.