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Genedata Biologics Selected as Global Antibody Discovery Workflow Platform for Ligand Pharmaceuticals

Genedata Biologics integrates, automates, and streamlines Ligand Pharmaceuticals’ OmniAb in vivo antibody discovery platform

December 14, 2021
Basel, Switzerland

Genedata, the leading provider of enterprise software solutions for biopharmaceutical R&D, today announced that Ligand Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: LGND) has chosen Genedata Biologics® as the global biologics R&D workflow and data management platform for their OmniAb antibody discovery platform. The Genedata Biologics platform will provide end-to-end support for OmniAb R&D groups and connect and digitalize data generation, analysis, and sharing across antibody screening, protein production, and molecular biology groups working to develop a diverse portfolio of therapeutics.

“We are excited that Ligand, a pioneer in in vivo antibody discovery technologies, has chosen Genedata Biologics to further digitalize and automate their OmniAb drug discovery workflow,” said Othmar Pfannes, Ph.D., CEO of Genedata. “The Genedata platform is discovery-technology agnostic and able to support the full breadth of technologies used in biopharma R&D, including both in vivo and in vitro technologies such as phage and yeast display. We will continue to invest into our Biopharma Platform to address current and future requirements in this quickly developing technology field.”

“Ligand requires a central system to support the diverse and interconnected workflows that are utilized by our antibody discovery teams around the world,” said Bill Harriman, Ph.D., Senior Vice President of Antibody Discovery at Ligand Pharmaceuticals. “We undertook an extensive review process to identify an optimal data handling platform demonstrating the robustness and flexibility to accommodate our unique antibody discovery platforms and processes. Genedata Biologics was recommended repeatedly as the industry standard for biopharmaceutical R&D and is the only such software developed specifically for antibodies. An added benefit is facilitated collaboration and information sharing options with our pharma and biotech partners who also use the Genedata platform.

“Antibody discovery is at the core of what we do, and we chose Genedata because we were looking for a system that specializes in antibody discovery workflows right from the start,” continued Dr. Harriman. “To support our broad and rapidly growing portfolio of discovery programs, Ligand is expanding our team, capabilities, and overall antibody informatics, including the deployment of Genedata Biologics.”

The OmniAb platform includes a full range of proprietary technologies for generating high-quality antibodies with superior performance and developability characteristics, including antigen design, transgenic animals, deep screening, and characterization. Genedata Biologics provides end-to-end support for all steps of large-molecule discovery, furthering the integration of OmniAb's capabilities by its partners. In addition, the built-in antibody engineering functionality of Genedata Biologics will increase throughput in the design and testing of novel antibodies, including highly engineered therapeutic modalities such as common light chain antibodies.

About OmniAb

OmniAb is Ligand Pharmaceutical’s patent-protected transgenic animal platform used in the discovery of fully human monoclonal and bispecific therapeutic antibodies. The OmniAb discovery platform provides pharmaceutical industry partners access to the diverse antibody repertoires and high-throughput screening technologies to enable discovery of next-generation therapeutics. At the heart of the OmniAb platform is the Biological Intelligence of our proprietary transgenic animals, including OmniRat, OmniChicken and OmniMouse that have been genetically modified to generate antibodies with human sequences to facilitate development of human therapeutic candidates. OmniFlic (transgenic rat) and OmniClic (transgenic chicken) address industry needs for bispecific antibody applications though a common light chain approach, and OmniTaur features unique structural attributes of cow antibodies for complex targets. OmniAb animals comprise the most diverse host systems available in the industry and they are optimally leveraged through computational antigen design and immunization methods, paired with high-throughput microcapillary-based single B cell screening and deep computational analysis of next-generation sequencing datasets to identify fully human antibodies with superior performance and developability characteristics. An established core competency focused on ion channels and transporters further differentiates our technology and creates opportunities to further leverage across modalities, including antibody-drug conjugates and others. The OmniAb suite of technologies and differentiating computational capabilities and BI features are combined to offer a highly efficient and customizable end-to-end solution for the growing discovery needs of the global pharmaceutical industry. For more information, please visit www.omniab.com.


Genedata Biologics was recommended repeatedly as the industry standard for biopharmaceutical R&D and is the only such software developed specifically for antibodies.

Bill Harriman, Ph.D.
Senior Vice President of Antibody Discovery