How DiversImmune & MultiMab Compare to Traditional Antibody Discovery Methods

Ian Chan, CEO of Abpro, discusses the advantages of their DiversImmune and MultiMab platforms for antibody discovery and engineering. Abpro's platform can create novel antibodies at industry-leading speeds, which are then reassembled into custom configurations for therapeutic purposes. They have developed bispecific antibodies, particularly T cell engagers for oncology, which are effective against solid tumors. Abpro's lead oncology program for breast cancer, in partnership with Celltrion, is advancing through clinical phases. Additionally, they have an eye care molecule targeting AMD and DME. The recent NASDAQ listing will aid in accelerating R&D and commercialization efforts. Collaborations, like the one with Celltrion, have been instrumental in the company's success.

Could you elaborate on the advantages of Abpro's DiversImmune and MultiMab platforms compared to traditional antibody discovery and engineering methods?

We have a number of different components of the platform that make us different. On the front end is our DiversImmune platform. That's the ability to create novel antibodies against traditionally difficult to make antibodies or targets, which are also high value for the therapeutics industry. We have the ability to create these at industry leading speeds. You can think of these as the Legos or building blocks for a future, next generation antibody therapeutic and on the back end. Once we have these Legos or building blocks, we have the ability to quickly reassemble them into custom configurations that are suited for a particular target. These will take different types of configurations to create the therapeutic property needed, but the engineering platform on the back end allows us to do so very quickly and in a way that allows us to maximize the therapeutic potential of these molecules.

With these two parts, so the front end is really where it all starts. So that's the engine for creating, like this diverse set of building blocks. And on the back end of the ability to reassemble them very quickly, we've been able to create a pipeline of such next generation antibodies, mostly two armed antibodies called by specific antibodies for mostly oncology. So, the ability to grab an immune cell on one side and directly attack a tumor cell on the other hand on the other arm. These are called T cell engagers, the next and greatest thing right now in the biotech industry for oncology.

Oncology has taken many steps forward, with the first generation being very targeted therapies against the actual tumor cell itself. And then multiple generations of therapies have followed, including the ability to bring small molecule payloads directly to tumor cells to attack them. And then, most recently, we have the capability now to bring human produced immune cells directly to the tumor cell in a very specific way. So those are called T cell engagers. It's the next wave. There's been great data in the field about how well they work against solid tumors. For example, we have a program for breast cancer, gastric colorectal cancer, as well as for liver cancer, and we're rapidly advancing those toward the clinic. Our lead oncology program is for breast cancer, for her two positive types, and that's a partnership that we formed with a leading worldwide pharmaceutical company two years ago called Celltrion out of South Korea. So, we formed the $2 billion partnership to advance that all the way from where it is right now into phase I, II and III fully reimbursed by Celltrion and then we share upside on the back end of that. So that's something we're very excited about, and it's also a testament and proof to how well the platform is working right now. And that bodes well for the rest of the mall, which kills in our pipeline because they follow a similar thesis. It's the ability to grab a tumor cell very specifically, so meaning it's only the bad cells, if you will, and not the healthy ones, and then bring a human's immune cell directly to the tumor cell to kill the tumor. So that's one part of our pipeline.

It's very exciting. We're excited about the potential for patients. And then on the other arm, more data is our eye care molecule, which is a bispecific antibody. So again, being able to bring together two different molecules that exist in circulation, so meaning that they're, they're already safe, because they're already floating around the human body. And we've been able to apply that for the for the eye. There's a large population of individuals who, as they age, they're not able to see well, and because there's too much blood vessel formation in the eye.

By bringing together two specific molecules, in our case, VEGF and ANGE2, the blood vessel formation is reduced for a disease area such as web AMD and DME, these are two of the largest disease areas right now. For the aging population, and this molecule has the potential to increase the length between when the medicine will actually be needed between doses. These are some of the therapies that we've been able to create using our platform. And then behind that, we have a variety of molecules that are in the discovery stage that we're they're still in the earlier stages but are potentially going to be moving forward into the clinic as well.