Zymeworks bags a pro­tein en­gi­neer­ing plat­form as it preps for an IPO

IPO-bound Zymeworks CEO Ali Tehrani bought him­self a two-year run­way back in Jan­u­ary af­ter com­plet­ing a $61.5 mil­lion round. And fol­low­ing up on his clear de­sire to round out the Van­cou­ver-based biotech’s tech­nol­o­gy foun­da­tion, Tehrani has com­plet­ed a deal to in-li­cense new pro­tein en­gi­neer­ing tech from In­no­v­a­tive Tar­get­ing So­lu­tions.

The biotech, which is al­lied with a ros­ter of mar­quee bio­phar­ma part­ners, bills this tech as “the first ful­ly mam­malian tech­nol­o­gy that gen­er­ates an­ti­body di­ver­si­ty in vit­ro via RAG1/RAG2 me­di­at­ed V(D)J re­com­bi­na­tion, al­low­ing for the gen­er­a­tion and affin­i­ty mat­u­ra­tion of high­ly po­tent pro­tein-based bi­o­log­ics.” And that should go a ways to­ward de­vel­op­ing bet­ter bis­pecifics and drug con­ju­gates.

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