Prellis Biologics to provide human lymph node organoids for research

Prellis Biologics Inc., a biotherapeutics company with human tissue engineering capabilities, has entered into a collaboration and license option agreement with Sanofi S.A., an innovative global healthcare company. The collaboration will focus on the discovery of antibodies with Prellis’ first-in-class external human immune system (EXIS), and leverages Prellis’ ability to engineer fully-human lymph node organoids (LNOs) and recreate immune responses in vitro to deliver antibodies with significant genetic diversity.

For their EXIS in vitro human antibody discovery, Prellis utilized its proprietary holographic printing technology to engineer lymph node organoids (LNOs) that mimic the human lymph node. The EXIS human antibody discovery platform is the first of its kind and significantly reduces discovery and lead identification time compared to existing in vivo or in vitro approaches. Prellis has challenged LNOs with a variety of target antigens in different formats to produce fully human antibody libraries with high affinities, sequence diversity and potency, ready for lead selection within 3 weeks. Additional applications of the EXIS platform currently include therapeutic screening and vaccine testing.

“The EXIS platform provides an unparalleled ability to recreate lymph node organoids in vitro. This powerful technology enables investigation of human B- and T-cell responses for a variety of applications, including antibody discovery and therapeutic immunogenicity,” said Melanie P. Matheu, PhD, Founder and CEO of Prellis Biologics. “We are delighted to work in collaboration with Sanofi in novel antibody research with our differentiated approach.”

“Recreating the human immune response and breaking tolerance to human antigens, in the EXIS platform allows us to rapidly identify an expansive set of high-quality antibodies,” said Kevin Chapman, PhD and CSO of Prellis.

Under the terms of the agreement, Prellis and Sanofi will collaborate on the generation of human antibodies for a target of interest. In return for an undisclosed up-front payment, Sanofi receives an exclusive option to license, develop and further commercialize the resulting antibodies.