UMBI announces exclusive licensing of fully human antibody technology platform to Prolias

Broad applications in therapeutics, diagnostics, research

The University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI) today announced the exclusive licensing of a fully human antibody technology platform to Prolias, a biotechnology company working to discover and develop novel therapeutic proteins and antibodies for treatment of disease.

The announcement was made by Dr. Theodore J. Roumel, UMBI's VP for Research, Innovation and Commercialization. The new technology will extend Prolias' discovery platform, FIoNATM, by providing a platform for the creation of fully human, recombinant antibodies from diverse, endogenous antibody sources.

Joe Hernandez, Chairman of Prolias, stated "This acquisition gives Prolias access to a method of developing full human antibodies to the novel targets we have discovered via our existing FioNA technology. This provides us with the ability to discover new targets and develop antibodies to those targets in a seamless manner."

The newly acquired technology, developed by Dr. George Lewis and colleagues at UMBI, provides Prolias with the means to generate fully human antibodies from na-ve B cells in vitro. The technology has broad applications in therapeutics, diagnostics and laboratory research. Advantages of the in vitro system are that it generates fully human antibodies without direct immunization of any patient or human individual, and antibodies can be created from readily accessible tissues such as human peripheral blood. Fully human antibodies avoid the unwanted responses against foreign antibodies, such as those containing mouse proteins. Monoclonal antibodies can be generated against dangerous pathogens, toxins or cancer cells without exposing any human individual to these substances. Also, the efficacy of human responses to vaccines can be tested in vitro.

Dr. Jonathan Gottlieb, Director of Technology Transfer and Commercialization at UMBI, stated, "This technology has several potentially important applications as therapeutic agents, as paired diagnostics, in vaccine screening and as reagents for biomedical research. In the realm of antibody therapeutics, fully human antibodies are the preferable modality. This novel approach offers an alternative to phage libraries".