BioNTech Buys MAB Discovery’s Antibody Generation Unit

BioNTech AG, located in Mainz, Germany, inked a deal with Munich, Germany’s MAB Discovery GmbH to acquire MAB’s operational antibody generation unit. No financial details were disclosed. BioNTech will acquire all assets, employees and “proprietary know-how” for monoclonal antibody (mAb) generation. MAB will keep ownership and all rights to its preclinical development pipeline and its existing third-party service agreements. The two companies have been collaborating for more than five years, where MAB generated antibodies using its technology, which is then further developed by BioNTech.
“Having exclusive access to MAB Discovery’s finely-tuned proprietary know-how dramatically expands BioNTech’s targeting ligand repertoire and enables us to directly, rapidly and efficiently produce new mAb candidates,” stated Ugur Sahin, chief executive officer and co-founder of BioNTech. “The technology will be utilized with our existing proprietary platforms including RiboMABS, a platform for generating a novel class of mRNA-encoded antibody drug candidates.”
BioNTech is the largest, privately-held biopharma company in Europe. The company has seven corporate partnerships with Roche’s Genentech, Pfizer, Genmab, Eli Lilly, Sanofi, Genevant and Bayer Health. It was founded in 2008. Its majority shareholders include the Struengmann Family Office, Fidelity Management & Research Company, Invus, Janus Henderson Investors, MIG Fonds, Redmile Group, Salvia and several European family offices.