SomaLogic & Twist Bioscience Corporation Announce Partnership to Discover Novel Therapeutic Targets & Antibodies

CM Life Sciences II and SomaLogic, Inc., and Twist Bioscience Corporation recently announced a collaboration aimed at creating novel antibodies and enabling innovative drug discovery based on key disease biomarkers. The collaboration will allow Twist to use the SomaScan Platform to quickly identify antibodies against targets resulting from SomaLogic’s industry-leading 7,000-plex assay, believed to be one of the broadest views of the proteome available.

”Having access to the SomaScan Platform provides a rich source of clinically relevant biomarkers in diverse therapeutic areas, where we can then take those targets and discover potent antibodies for the treatment of disease,” said Emily M. Leproust, PhD, CEO and co-founder of Twist Bioscience. “We intend to use the antibodies discovered for our internal pipeline, moving the most promising candidates through preclinical development and then potentially outlicensing to a partner.”

Human blood proteins are the targets for drugs that treat more than 90 percent of diseases. Determining which of these proteins has a causal relationship with a specific disease, and which could be a candidate for a targeted drug, has been a challenge for researchers. Studies using the SomaScan Platform often generate a list of proteins involved in a disease process that may differ significantly from the diseases being studied and provide new avenues for research into drug targets with potential benefits for patients. The collaboration between Twist Bioscience and SomaLogic provides an opportunity to explore targets across a wide range of therapeutic areas.

In addition, the list of potential protein targets found by the SomaScan Platform can be enriched for promising drug targets by using inhibitory SOMAmer reagents for validating specific drug targets. These reagents could include SOMAmer reagents used in the SomaScan Assay, as well as reagents from affinity-enriched pools that exist for each protein. This process can be a useful starting point for drug target validation.

Twist Bioscience leverages its unique technology platform to manufacture a broad range of synthetic DNA-based products, including synthetic genes, tools for next-generation sequencing sample preparation, and antibody libraries for drug discovery, optimization and development. Additionally, Twist expects its disruptive DNA synthesis platform will enable new opportunities including discovery partnerships for biologic drugs, and will enable new applications such as digital data storage in DNA.

“This collaboration is a strong example of the powerful connections that can be made leveraging synthetic biology approaches in both genomics and proteomics,” said SomaLogic Chief Executive Officer Roy Smythe, MD. “The vast majority of drugs act on proteins, and this work with target identification and validation is directed at facilitating breakthrough discoveries with significant potential impact in biology and medicine.”

SomaLogic seeks to deliver precise, meaningful, and actionable health-management information that empowers individuals worldwide to continuously optimize their personal health and wellness throughout their lives. This essential information, to be provided through a global network of partners and users, is derived from SomaLogic’s personalized measurement of important changes in an individual’s proteins over time. For more information, visit www.somalogic.com.

SomaSignal tests are developed and their performance characteristics determined by SomaLogic, Inc. SomaLogic is a Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certified, and College of American Pathologists (CAP) accredited laboratory.  The SomaScan Platform is for Research Use Only (RUO) and has not been cleared or approved by the US FDA for diagnostic or patient management purposes.

SomaLogic’s proprietary SomaScan Platform was designed to be a universal platform that can be applied across research and discovery, translational research and biopharmaceutical development, and clinical applications. SomaLogic can run approximately 7,000 protein measurements on a single 55 microliter plasma or serum sample. The company has run more than 450,000 samples to date.

Twist Bioscience is a leading and rapidly growing synthetic biology and genomics company that has developed a disruptive DNA synthesis platform to industrialize the engineering of biology. The core of the platform is a proprietary technology that pioneers a new method of manufacturing synthetic DNA by “writing” DNA on a silicon chip. Twist is leveraging its unique technology to manufacture a broad range of synthetic DNA-based products, including synthetic genes, tools for next-generation sequencing (NGS) preparation, and antibody libraries for drug discovery and development. Twist is also pursuing longer-term opportunities in digital data storage in DNA and biologics drug discovery. Twist makes products for use across many industries including healthcare, industrial chemicals, agriculture and academic research.