OmniAb, Inc
Pushing the Frontiers of Drug Discovery Technologies

OmniAb’s mission is to enable the rapid development of innovative therapeutics by pushing the frontiers of drug discovery technologies. It intends to achieve this by being the partner of choice for pharma and biotech companies, helping them discover high-quality therapeutic candidates.

Antibody-based modalities are a fast-growing class of drugs as they show higher clinical success rates compared to traditional, small molecules. Also, a few aspects of the recent Inflation Reduction Act may lead to more companies pursuing biologic and antibody-based approaches. As a result, there is a growing need for cutting-edge discovery technologies that can drive efficiencies.

OmniAb’s technology platform is designed to enable the efficient discovery of the highest-quality, fully-human antibodies for a wide range of diseases, including cancer. The platform aims to overcome existing industry challenges and provide partners with access to antibody candidates based on unparalleled biological diversity that is optimized through tight integration of technologies, including computationally powered antigen design, high-throughput microcapillary single-cell analysis, next-generation sequencing, proprietary assays, in silico capabilities, and bioinformatics.

OmniAb’s platform comprises a suite of integrated technologies designed to discover a wide range of high-quality therapeutic antibodies that leverage the inherent diversity produced by transgenic animals and the efficiency of high throughput single-cell screening.

“We believe our approach shortens the discovery timelines, reduces costs, and increases the probability of success,” says Matt Foehr, president and CEO of OmniAb.

OmniAb offers the industry’s only four-species platform to address a wide range of biological challenges faced by its partners in their antibody discovery efforts. At the heart of the platform is the Biological Intelligence™ of its proprietary transgenic animals that have been genetically modified to produce a large number of naturally optimized, high-quality antibodies with human sequences. The company’s platform includes the OmniMouse^®, OmniRat^®, OmniChicken^®, and cow-based technologies, OmniTaur™.
It also has fixed and common light chain rats and chickens, OmniFlic^® and OmniClic^®.

The companypairs its animals with computational antigen design to generate robust antibody responses to biological targets. This includes (but is not limited to) difficult and complex targets like ion channels, GPCRs, transporters, and other transmembrane proteins.

OmniAb’s investments in technologies are driven by the mission to provide partners with the most cutting-edge technologies to solve the biggest challenges in antibody discovery. Its technologies are modular and sequential, creating a complete and scalable solution.

These technologies can be individually integrated into partners’ internal or external workflows, providing them with integrated, end-to-end discovery solutions or highly customizable, program-by-program approaches. This flexibility allows OmniAb to address critical industry challenges for both large and small companies.

Deep Capabilities in Ion Channels

OmniAb’s core capabilities in ion channels and transporters differentiate us in the industry.

Ion channel and transporter targets are seen as high-value by many in the industry and are often quite difficult to pursue. This element of OmniAb’s technology platform has evolved over many years to include one of the highest capacity assay capabilities, a large repository of cell lines stably expressing human proteins, custom in silico tools for data analysis, and integrated knowledge of next generation ion channel drug discovery.

Utilizing its ion channel platform, OmniAb ^® is among the first to identify sub-type selective clinical candidates for multiple targets across gene families. This depth and scale, coupled with the company’s antibody technologies, has allowed it to identify functional antibody-based modulators for ion channels and transporters that are difficult to find with conventional approaches.

Running Efficient Operations

OmniAb has the capability to bring flexibility to a variety of workflows preferred by partners. That allows the company to run an efficient operation while meeting the scientific needs of the programs and the operational needs of partners.

In one example, an emerging biotech company with a novel multi-transmembrane target for triple-negative breast cancer was facing difficulties as previously known antibodies to their target could only bind to denatured or fixed form, which were unsuitable for therapeutic use.

OmniAb’s antigen technology was applied to deliver mg-scale quantities of a purified receptor in native conformation for immunization, and then provide downstream screening. Immunization with OmniAb’s OmniChicken technology led to the discovery of a large and diverse panel of fully-human antibodies capable of binding the target[s] on live tissues.

In another example, OmniAb helped a large biotech company with a heritage of discovery and development of groundbreaking drugs to expand their internal discovery team and novel biology capabilities. They wanted a flexible, scalable antibody discovery solution to start dozens of new programs every year. The client was also interested in deeper collaboration with OmniAb to develop next-generation rodents, which were tested in parallel with active novel biology programs they were pursuing. This collaboration led to multiple clinical candidates, and OmniAb expects that the number will increase in the future.

Culture of Collaboration and Inclusiveness

What separates OmniAb is its discovery platform and a team with a track record of success. They have created a number of “technology firsts” and helped enable the efficient discovery of three approved antibodies and over 20 clinical candidates.

The team of over 100 employees is spread out across its three technology centers in California, North Carolina, and Arizona. They put emphasis on partners and their current and future needs. The company embraces challenges and sees them as opportunities to break new ground.

“We foster a culture of collaboration and inclusiveness while prioritizing the creation of what we call organizational energy,” says Foehr. “We’re very proud of what we are building here at OmniAb and are excited about bringing new innovation to our partners.”