Pharmaceutical Business review

Rallybio, AbCellera partner to develop therapeutics for rare diseases

Rallybio, AbCellera partner to discover, develop, and commercialise new antibody-based therapeutics for rare diseases. Credit: National Cancer Institute on Unsplash.

The multi-target, multi-year partnership will combine the clinical and commercial knowledge of Rallybio in rare diseases with AbCellera’s antibody discovery engine for identifying optimal clinical candidates and providing therapies to patients.

Under the deal terms, both the companies will co-develop and chose up to five rare disease therapeutic targets.

Rallybio CEO Martin Mackay said: “AbCellera’s clinically validated discovery engine will strengthen our efforts in identifying novel rare disease candidates to add to our existing pipeline.”

The company stated that the new partnership will allow it to add product candidates to its current pipeline.

It will also provide the option for AbCellera to conduct development and clinical manufacturing activities of the researched therapies.

Initially, the collaboration will focus on addressing the significant unmet therapeutic requirement of rare metabolic disease patients.

AbCellera founder and CEO Carl Hansen said: “It’s clear that we need to accelerate drug development for rare diseases to address the enormous unmet medical need for these patients.

“Rallybio’s team has decades of experience in sourcing, identifying, and evaluating therapeutic targets.

“By bringing together Rallybio’s deep expertise in rare diseases with AbCellera’s integrated technology for delivering clinical leads with unmatched precision and speed, this partnership creates a unique advantage that we believe will deliver new and transformative medicines to patients.”

Last year, the company signed a collaboration and licence agreement with Everest Medicines to advance new antibody therapies.