The State of Investing in Antibody Technology
This article was originally published in Start Up
Executive Summary
Since December 2001, only two privately held antibody firms have raised more than $15 million in a round of financing. Moreover, the older public companies founded on the promise of disruptive antibody development technologies, principally Abgenix and Medarex with fully human antibodies, and Human Genome Sciences with its antibody-driven genomics discovery science, have yet to validate those platforms through successful clinical product development. Even antibody humanization specialist Protein Design Labs, which has marketed antibody products from which it's getting royalties, is still selling for not much more than its cash value. Yet despite a fall-off in investments in this core area of biotech drug development, VCs still say antibodies will provide a range of successful new therapies.