Genovac acquires platform for antibody screening services
Genovac and Carterra, Inc. announce that Genovac has acquired Carterra’s LSA platform for use in its discovery services.
Genovac, previously a part of Aldevron before a management buyout in 2020, has been providing discovery services to life science researchers since 1999 from its site in Freiburg, Germany. More recently, Genovac added production, characterisation, and cell line development capabilities to its site located in the North Dakota State University Research and Technology Park in Fargo, North Dakota.
“Since our launch of Genovac, we’ve been completely focused on serving our antibody discovery clients with the most robust and effective discovery and production capabilities, utilising the most advanced technologies available,” said Brian Walters, Genovac’s CEO. “We’re thrilled to add Carterra’s LSA, the most advanced, high-throughput epitope binning and affinity measuring platform in the world, to our Fargo facility.”
Carterra launched the LSA antibody discovery and characterisation platform in 2018 utilising high-throughput Surface Plasmon Resonance (HT-SPR) technology and has quickly made it the standard in 16 of the largest 20 pharmaceutical companies, biotechs, CROs, and government labs like the NIAID headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci. The applications across these customer types are equally broad and include identifying an antibody’s binding characteristics to its disease target and determining its mechanism of action through high-resolution epitope binning.
The speed at which antibodies can now be identified and characterised as potential drugs by Carterra’s LSA has improved on traditional methods by generating results 100 times faster while using 99% less sample. Sensitivity for finding the rarest of antibodies in a complex matrix is also now well-developed.
“To have 100 instruments deployed across the globe in such a short time is striking, especially during the pandemic,” said Tim Germann, chief commercial officer at Carterra. “We’re particularly pleased that Genovac has received the 100th LSA platform. Like Carterra, Genovac is completely committed to serving their clients with the most advanced technologies and services in biologics discovery.”