Automated Cells discovery engine includes unique, proprietary human antibody libraries and proprietary high throughput, functional biological screening to identify antibody leads and to determine mechanism of action, toxicity and validate targets at a throughput of 400,000 antibodies per week. As a drug discovery company focused on the development of monoclonal antibody therapeutics for the treatment of cancer, ACI has developed a target independent approach where the starting point of drug discovery is the identification of an active antibody through functional biology, rather than the target. The active antibody is then used to identify and validate its target in parallel with secondary screening, saving time and money in driving antibodies to the clinic. This novel approach to antibody discovery offers several advantages over more typical genomic/proteomic approaches to target identification and validation: 1) Targets identified by this method are simultaneously validated and suitable for antibody therapeutics; 2) Because the approach is function based it is unbiased with regard to target sequence and offers an opportunity to discover truly novel targets or assign new previously unrecognized function to new targets, and 3) Removing target identification and validation from the critical path to the clinic produces faster INDs. Automated Cells business strategy is directed at building value through creating a pipeline of monoclonal antibody drug candidates that ACI will both drive through clinical trials and partner for further development. We collaborate with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to use our target-independent platform to create drug discovery programs tailored to their needs. ACI actively out-licenses our targets, therapeutic and diagnostic antibodies and other aspects of our technology platforms. Automated Cells collaborations include: Abgenix where we have determined antibody mechanism of action; Celltech where we have phenotyped and validated protein cancer targets; Morphochem where we optimize small molecule lead candidates; Precision Therapeutics where we have out-licensed our cell phenotyping technology for cancer diagnostics; NIH - who is supporting technology development with a $2.9 million grant; and technology deals to increase our capabilities: American Red Cross for antibody library technology, Acceptys for human monoclonal antibody creation and Strand Genomics for informatics.
