That’s significant, said Broderick, because some of the most important targets for drugs today aren’t strong immunogens so they don’t necessarily generate a vigorous and robust b-cell response. For these difficult targets, standard screening techniques may not be able to detect the best antibodies. In fact, Trellis has been able to screen large collections of antibodies that other companies have given up on and find antibodies that were too rare for conventional screening technology to detect.

 

In one project for Redwood City, California-based PDL BioPharma, the company was able to screen a library of antibodies to find ten candidates for a cancer target that PDL was pursuing. PDL had previously scanned the same library without much success.

 

“A lot of projects stop just because we can’t screen that deeply,” said Bob DuBridge, head of new technologies for PDL BioPharma. “We had a very difficult target. We spent months and months trying to screen antibodies to it and we found one crummy one. They found ten and a few of them were pretty good. So that project went from ‘we’re going to drop it’ to ‘okay, we’re going to progress because we’ve got the reagents to move forward.’”

 

CellSpot uses plates coated with a desired protein and takes a large volume of antibody producing b-cells to capture their footprint. The cells are washed away and the plate is treated with fluorescent nanoparticles that light up remaining antibodies with desired characteristics. The process not only allows a large number of antibodies to be screened at once, but also to simultaneously screen for multiple attributes such as affinity and specificity. The company can pull the desired antibody producing b-cell simply by appearance.

 

Trellis said it can develop a lead antibody to a target in a matter of six weeks. That’s far faster than the estimated year it can take to develop a mouse-derived antibody to do the same as it must be engineered so it is safe for humans.

 

Bruce Keyt, vice president of research and CTO for Trellis believes because the CellSpot can identify antibodies from human blood, “there are safety and efficacy bonuses.” He said these antibodies will have “negligible to zero” side effects.”

 

The 25-person company is currently in the process of raising a third round of venture funding. It’s raised $25 million to date and expects to raise an additional $20 million in the current round. The latest funding should carry it through the early-stage clinical trial for its RSV antibody and will advance two preclinical programs under way in cancer to target “well validated” targets. The company is also reviewing a number of different potential programs, and expects to take it through mid-stage clinical trials before finding a partner for it.

“We expect in each case it may well be different depending on the disease, the need and the interest of potential partners,” said Trellis’ Cunningham. “This one we expect to take through phase II clinical trials and partner it at that point, although we might do a small regional deal. In general it will vary with each target and each disease, but most we will probably take to the clinic, if not into the clinic.”