MacroGenics has licensed The Trianni Mouse, a transgenic mouse R&D platform for the discovery of fully-human monoclonal antibodies (mAb). The agreement with Trianni will support MacroGenics’ discovery programs for mAb therapeutics used in oncology.
Ezio Bonvini, chief scientific officer of MacroGenics, said in a press release, that the company can use the mouse for its molecules that are based on its Fc optimization and multi-specific DART and TRIDENT platforms. Applying antibodies into these molecules MacroGenics can accelerate its candidate development processes.
Trianni’s platform combines human antibody repertoire with wild-type mouse immune responses to target antigens, according to the company.
Trianni did not respond to a request for comment.
In October of 2017, Juno Therapeutics also signed a licensing agreement with Trianni for its mAb platform. Juno used the mouse model to identify full-human binders for conversion to chimeric antigen receptors as part of the company’s engineered T cell programs.
Juno stated at the time that it was to use the program to establish “next-generation CAR-T cells.”
Humanized mouse model systems are not new, but technology is emerging that could improve their use. Recently, scientists at CytoReason developed a mouse to human model. The model is a machine-learning platform for human immune system cell-level simulation.