Genovac Acquires the Carterra LSA Instrument to Enable State-of-the-Art Antibody Screening & Characterization Services

Genovac, a leading contract research and manufacturing organization (CRO/CMO) that discovers, develops, and manufactures antibodies for therapeutic, diagnostic, and research market segments, and Carterra, Inc., the world leader in label-free high-throughput antibody screening and characterization, recently announce Genovac has acquired Carterra’s LSA platform for use in its discovery services.

Genovac, previously a part of Aldevron before a management buy-out in 2020, has been providing discovery services to life science researchers since 1999 from its site in Freiburg, Germany. More recently, Genovac added production, characterization, 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, utilizing 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 characterization platform in 2018 utilizing 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 characterized 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 best-in-class.

Other highlights from Carterra’s stellar launch of the LSA include:

• The LSA was a primary tool used by Eli Lilly and AbCellera in the discovery of bamlanivimab, the world’s first COVID-19 therapeutic and fastest biologic ever to reach clinical trials.  A Science paper: https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/scitranslmed.abf1906
• The Gates-funded global COVID-19 Immunotherapy Consortium (CoVIC) used the LSA to help identify the most potent antibody drug candidates from all over the world.  A Science Paper:https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abh2315
• In December of 2020, Carterra closed an equity round of financing from industry giant, PerkinElmer, who is also now the exclusive distributor of the LSA platform in the Asia-Pacific and Oceania regions.

“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 100^th LSA platform.  Like Carterra, Genovac is completely committed to serving their clients with the most advanced technologies and services in biologics discovery.”

Carterra is privately held and is the leading provider of high-throughput technologies designed to accelerate and improve the discovery of novel therapeutic candidates. Carterra’s LSA instrument, software, and consumables for monoclonal antibody (mAb) characterization deliver up to 100 times the throughput of existing platforms in 10% of the time while using only 1% of the sample required by other systems. The LSA combines patented microfluidics technology with real-time high-throughput Surface Plasmon Resonance (HT-SPR) and industry-leading data analysis and visualization software to revolutionize mAb screening. Carterra, Inc. is based in Salt Lake City, UT, and has Customer Experience Centers in San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Boston, and Munich, Germany.  Carterra products are available in Asia-Pacific and Oceania through our exclusive distributor, PerkinElmer. For more information, visit www.carterra-bio.com.

Genovac is a contract research and manufacturing organization offering the world’s most advanced antibody discovery solutions. Its immunization technologies, combined with multiple single-cell screening technologies, including Berkeley Lights’ Beacon, enable success against the most challenging targets. Since its founding in 1999, Genovac has completed more than 3,500 projects, providing antibodies to clients in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia that have been developed into clinical and commercial drugs.  In addition to its headquarters and labs in Fargo, North Dakota, Genovac operates another scientific and production facility in Freiberg, Germany.