Bellinzona spin-out: Proprietary human antibody company Humabs BioMed launches

Following seven years of incubation within the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (“IRB”) in Bellinzona, Humabs BioMed (“Humabs”) has formed an independent privately owned company.  Humabs is focused on the discovery and development of next-generation fully human monoclonal antibodies targeted at infectious and inflammatory diseases.  Using its proprietary antibody discovery platforms, the Company is producing a rich pipeline of high quality and distinct antibodies.

Humabs was originally founded in 2004 as an incubator to develop and optimize two antibody platforms aimed at the rapid and efficient isolation of high affinity fully human antibodies from memory B cells and plasma cells, enabling full exploitation of the human antibody response. The technologies were developed by Professor Dr Antonio Lanzavecchia, the director of the IRB and the scientific founder of Humabs who will be acting as Humabs Chief Scientific Officer.  By screening hundreds of thousands of cells from high responders, the technologies allow the isolation of the rare ones which produce antibodies with a unique specificity.  To date these platforms have produced a bank with over 500 antibody-producing cells.  Humabs holds the exclusive, long term license to the antibody technology platforms.

Humabs currently has more than 200 antibodies in its pre-clinical development pipeline that treat a number of viruses, including Cytomegalovirus, Influenza virus, HIV-1, Dengue virus, Hepatitis B and C viruses and Rabies, which have delivered strong pre-clinical data showing the antibodies are highly efficacious both in vitro and in vivo. Humabs recently published a paper in Science* describing FI6, the first neutralizing antibody that targets all 16 hemagglutinin subtypes of influenza A, which has the potential to become the world’s first universal flu therapeutic.

Humabs strategy is to develop its antibodies to the pre-clinical stage before licensing to development partners. The speed and adaptability of the platforms enables it to quickly respond to fight new infectious diseases.  The Company has already licensed its group of cytomegalovirus antibodies, to a large pharmaceutical company for further development, and is in discussions with a number of potential partners for FI6. Besides its own pre-clinical programs, Humabs is also involved in joint R&D programs with a number of pharmaceutical companies.

Humabs has a strong senior management team, which combines a complementary mix of industry and academic expertise.  The Company’s founder and CSO, Antonio Lanzavecchia, is Professor of Human Immunology at the ETH Zurich and one of the world’s leading immunologists. Anders Harfstrand, CEO, has 23 years global experience with big pharma and recently led the development and successful sale of Nitec Pharma AG, a private speciality pharma company within the autoimmune field.  The Board is chaired by Dr William Rutter, a pharma industry veteran who was the co-founder and Chairman of Chiron Corporation and is a founding investor in Humabs.  The Company’s has set up its laboratories close to the IRB. Its close relationship with the IRB means it has the opportunity to collaborate with more than 70 scientists as well as the Institute’s full facilities, giving considerable savings over those of a typical start-up company.

Anders Harfstrand, Chief Executive Officer of Humabs, commented:  “Humabs novel platform and leading team of experts puts it in a strong competitive position to take advantage of the large and growing therapeutic antibody market.  There is currently only one approved monoclonal antibody targeted at infectious disease and there is therefore a major opportunity to meet the needs within this specific field.  Our antibodies have shown in in-vitro and in-vivo studies to be more efficacious in infectious diseases than current antibody-based treatments and we look forward to progressing them into the next stage of development.”