Through the collaboration, BeiGene can access Nona’s fully human transgenic mice platform, Harbour Mice.
In 2018, BeiGene received the rights to leverage the Harbour Mice heavy chain (H2L2) platform for several antibody programmes.
The expanded collaboration will allow the inclusion of the Harbour Mice HCAb (heavy chain-only antibody format) for further enhancing therapeutic antibody discovery flexibility and efficiency.
Harbour Mice produces fully human monoclonal antibodies in classical two light and two H2L2 format, and heavy chain only HCAb format.
Nona Biosciences is focused on the development of next-generation drugs by integrating Harbour Mice with a B cell cloning platform.
Nona Biosciences chairman Dr Jingsong Wang said: “We are delighted to broaden our collaboration with BeiGene on antibody discovery. Our platform has enabled biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies as well as academia to accelerate innovative drug discovery for more than a decade.
“BeiGene has been a long-term partner for us, and partnership expansion is emblematic of Nona’s accumulated knowledge and expertise in drug discovery.”
In January this year, the China National Medical Products Administration’s (NMPA) Center for Drug Evaluation (CDE) accepted BeiGene’s supplemental biologics license application (sBLA) for tislelizumab to treat hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).
The applications’ regulatory acceptance for marketing authorisation of this therapy is to treat first-line unresectable or metastatic HCC patients.