Benzinga | Jul 16, 2020 08:18AM EDT

Twist Bioscience Reports Partnership With Ivetx To Deliver Antibody Therapeutics For Dogs And Cats

Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ:TWST), a company enabling customers to succeed through its offering of high-quality synthetic DNA using its silicon platform, and Invetx, a pioneer in protein-based therapeutics for animal health, today announced a partnership for the engineering and optimization of novel antibodies for the treatment of serious diseases in dogs and cats.

"Many diseases in animals manifest through the same protein targets observed in humans," said Juergen Horn, PhD, chief executive officer of Invetx. "By partnering with Twist to create specific antibody libraries for veterinary species, we are expanding Invetx's ability to deliver best-in-class antibody therapeutics and translate biotechnology approaches already proven successful in the human field to veterinary medicine."

Under the terms of the agreement, Twist Biopharma, a division of Twist Bioscience, will use its Twist Antibody Optimization (TAO) platform to engineer and optimize multiple antibodies against important disease targets in animal health. The Twist technology will be a key component of Invetx's antibody discovery effort and the company's strategy to develop safer and more effective veterinary medicines.

"Leading market research firms estimate the global animal medicines market was nearly $34 billion in 2019, with a compound annual growth rate of five to seven percent," said Emily M. Leproust, PhD, chief executive officer and co-founder of Twist Bioscience. "With the high degree of genetic conservation between species, we believe Invetx's approach to bring the best of biopharma to animal health has incredible possibilities to offer improved therapeutics to our pets. We look forward to being an integral part of Invetx's effort to revolutionize the medicines available to the animal health industry."