Trellis and OMT Announce Therapeutic Antibody Discovery Collaboration

SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. & PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Trellis Bioscience LLC (Trellis) and Open Monoclonal Technology, Inc. (OMT) today announced a new collaboration where the companies will join forces to generate human antibodies against therapeutic targets identified by Trellis and its partners using OMT’s OmniRat™ platform. Trellis will apply its CellSpot™ antibody screening technology to libraries of OmniRat-generated B cells to discover high affinity, ultra rare antibodies with precisely defined specificity. Trellis will advance and partner each program and share the deal economics with OMT depending on the stage of development.

Stote Ellsworth, Trellis CEO and President, said: “Trellis’ CellSpot platform has shown in four consecutive programs the unique ability to mine rare, best-in-class therapeutic antibodies directly from human blood. In addition to our native human approach, the collaboration with OMT will leverage Trellis’ powerful multiplexed screening in the context of antibody libraries generated with the OmniRat platform. This will allow Trellis to expand into new therapeutic areas and expand its commercial opportunities, particularly in the field of cancer.”

Dr. Roland Buelow, OMT CEO and Founder, continued: "We are pleased to collaborate with Trellis to capture the synergies of our complementary antibody discovery technologies. This collaboration further illustrates OMT’s ability to partner with a range of companies to produce human therapeutic antibodies.”

About Trellis Bioscience LLC

Trellis is a venture funded therapeutic antibody company formed around a breakthrough, high throughput discovery platform capable of isolating ultra-rare therapeutic-grade antibodies directly from the blood of humans and other mammals, and from other antibody library sources including hybridomas. Trellis’ CellSpot technology has generated a robust pipeline of early-stage programs targeting respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), cytomegalovirus (CMV), influenza, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Streptococcus A (GAS) and cancer.

Open Monoclonal Technology, Inc. – “naturally optimized human antibodies™”

Open Monoclonal Technology, Inc. (OMT) is a leader in genetic engineering of animals for development of human therapeutic antibodies. OMT has developed OmniRat™, the first fully human monoclonal antibody platform using transgenic rats. OmniRat is based on an improved understanding of B cell development and a novel approach to inactivation of endogenous antibody expression. These transgenic animals make antibodies as efficiently as wild type animals. OmniRat is a new and proprietary technology with unrestricted development options for fully human monoclonal antibodies for all targets and indications worldwide.

Trellis Bioscience LLC
Stote Ellsworth, +1-650-616-1131
sellsworth@trellisbio.com
www.trellisbio.com
or
Open Monoclonal Technology, Inc.
Brian Lundstrom, +1-510-220-5599
bl@omtinc.net
www.omtinc.net

Source: Open Monoclonal Technology, Inc.