Under the terms of the agreement, WuXi Biologics leverages its proprietary antibody discovery technology platforms (R in CRDMO) to discover two undisclosed targets of preclinical investigational monoclonal antibodies for BioNTech to develop next-generation therapeutic product candidates. WuXi Biologics will receive a $20 million upfront payment for granting exclusive rights to these investigational monoclonal antibodies to BioNTech and is eligible to receive additional payments, including payments for research, development, regulatory, and commercial milestones, as well as tiered royalties.

Dr. Chris Chen, CEO of WuXi Biologics, commented, “Our unique CRDMO model is proven again. We are very pleased to support BioNTech’s growing innovative pipeline with antibodies discovered through our leading integrated discovery platforms. This agreement demonstrates our continued recognition as an industry leader in discovery service solutions, and further validates our ability to provide integrated discovery technology platforms for global partners to develop new modalities. We are looking forward to working with BioNTech with the aim of bringing potential new therapeutics with improved outcomes to patients worldwide.”

WuXi Biologics offers a full spectrum of both end-to-end and modular discovery services – from idea to preclinical candidate identification – using industry-leading technology platforms and comprehensive discovery capabilities. The company’s discovery technology platforms for the generation, characterization, engineering, optimization and selection of novel antibody and biologic therapeutics include: hybridoma technology; single B cell cloning technology; phage display and yeast display technology; immune and synthetic human scFv and VHH libraries; human IgG transgenic platforms through an OmniAb^® and Alloy partnership; WuXiBody™ and SDarBody™ bispecific/multispecific antibody platforms; and other antibody and biologics generation and optimization technologies. All technology platforms are supported by WuXi Biologics’ comprehensive research material generation and assay development capabilities.