Merck社、Genedata Biologicsを導入：バイスペシフィック抗体創薬プログラムの規模を拡大

Merck takes advantage of latest Genedata Biologics functionalities to streamline the design, production, and testing of bispecific antibodies across their therapeutic R&D programs

July 18, 2017
Basel, Switzerland

Genedata, a leading provider of advanced software solutions for R&D, today announced that Merck, a leading science and technology company, has implemented Genedata Biologics™ to scale-up their bispecific antibody discovery programs, to develop innovative therapeutics for the therapeutic areas of Oncology, Immunology, and Neurodegenerative Diseases.

The need to systematically evaluate large panels of multi-specific antibodies poses new bottlenecks for antibody engineering with regard to throughput and automation. Multiple next-generation antibody formats must be tested, which results in significant combinatorial complexity. Genedata Biologics substantially increases throughput by enabling the systematic design and cloning of large numbers of novel, highly engineered molecules and enabling automation of downstream expression, purification, and characterization processes.

Back in 2015, Merck deployed Genedata Biologics as its central biologics workflow platform across Merck Biopharma antibody discovery units in Germany, Israel, and the US, where Merck operates its biopharmaceutical business as EMD Serono. Since its successful roll-out, the platform’s applications have been continuously expanded to groups including phage and yeast display, B-cell cloning, protein engineering, microbial and mammalian expression, purification, analytics and QC. Today, Genedata Biologics is Merck’s central repository for biologics candidate data, enabling transparent decision making on the most promising candidates to promote into clinical development.

“We are delighted to see Merck expand the application scope of Genedata Biologics to their innovative bispecific R&D programs,” said Dr. Othmar Pfannes, CEO of Genedata. “It is exciting to see how our platform enables the adoption of new processes in this quickly evolving field. We are committed to further expanding the platform in close collaboration with our growing customer base to support new technologies, such as cell and gene therapies, RNA therapeutics, novel scaffolds, and other innovative therapeutic platforms.”

In the six short years since its first release in 2011, Genedata Biologics has been rapidly adopted by more than half of the world’s leading biopharmaceutical companies. Genedata’s collaborations range from single group installations to large, global, multi-site partnerships and include technology transfer, customizations, project management, training, and roll out and deployment support.