Technology
The Hu-PAC™ platform
The Hu-PAC™ platform is delivering the next generation of fully human therapeutic antibodies. Hu-PAC™ technology uses mouse primary preB lymphocytes that are genetically modified to produce fully human antibodies, either in vitro or upon in vivo transplantation into mice. The antibodies produced using Hu-PAC™ technology are highly specific for target antigens and can be produced efficiently and effectively for any target. Furthermore, these therapeutic antibodies are fully human, thereby minimizing the risk that they will be attacked by the human immune system. For more information please see the overview of therapeutic antibodies.
The Hu-PAC™ advantage
4-Antibody’s Hu-PAC™ technology offers a number of significant advantages for developing therapeutic antibodies:
- Freedom to operate for the development of human antibodies against any target. Hu-PAC™ technology is unrestricted by patent or licensing issues and can be used to create fully human antibodies against any target. This contrasts with the exclusive licensing of clinically validated targets for current gold-standard technologies (phage display and transgenic mouse technologies), which thereby limits the opportunity to use gold standard methods to develop fully human antibodies against most major validated targets.
- High specificity, high affinity antibodies. Antibodies produced using Hu-PAC™ technology exhibit high specificity for the target antigen. In addition, the genetically modified preB cells can be transplanted into mice and therefore undergo affinity maturation, a natural process during which B cells produce antibodies with increased affinity for the antigen target (via induction of T-cell dependent somatic hypermutation).
- Non-immunogenic. Therapeutic antibodies that are fully human and produced by lymphocytes (as opposed to expression by bacteria/phage and by general genetic engineering) minimize the risk that they will be attacked by the patient’s immune system.
- Maximised efficiency and flexibility. The Hu-PAC™ platform generates libraries from any patient antibody sample in a few weeks. These libraries can then be screened at the rate of millions of antibody clones per day for antigen binding thereby making the generation of mouse pre-B cells expressing the human antibodies of choice, much more efficient. The use of libraries allows the flexibility to develop antibodies de novo, and to improve existing antibodies. Furthermore, Hu-PAC™ technology permits the modification of any aspect of the primary structure of the expressed antibodies.
- Creation of unique antibodies. Through a combination of in vitro library screening and in vivo affinity maturation, the Hu-PAC™ platform enables the development of natural antibodies that would not be possible using either phage display or transgenic animal production alone. In vitro screening enables H and L chain shuffling, creating unusual antibody specificities not found in normal repertoires. It also allows for the in vivo maturation of auto-reactive antibodies that would not have survived in a transgenic animal.