In early October 2017, it was announced that San Diego-based Ligand Pharmaceuticals - itself having been an SBIR involved firm - had acquired Crystal Bioscience, a developer of chicken-derived, human antibodies, This was a cash transaction plus additional potential payments of up to 50% more based on "success-based" milestones and revenue sharing. Relying on the large phylogenetic distance between mammals and birds to generate a diverse array of antibodies to human targets that have proven intractable in mammalian and other discovery platforms, Crystal has developed technology allowing chickens to be used to generate human antibodies. Crystal bills its antibody technology "OmniChicken". Crystal Bioscience is a leader in avian transgenesis and designs and implements technologies that improve therapeutic antibody discovery. The companyâs most recent antibody discovery tool uses Gel Encapsulated Microenvironments (GEMs) to isolate candidate monoclonal antibodies with unprecedented efficiency and speed. Using novel repertoires and pairing them with the GEM technology, candidate therapeutics with appropriate biological and biophysical characteristics are identified directly from B cells. Crystalâs proprietary transgenic technologies are being utilized in combination with the GEM technology to derive monoclonal antibodies from chickens that are genetically engineered to produce fully human immunoglobulins. Crystalâs unique approach opens new opportunities in therapeutic antibody disco
