PolyTherics Limited, a provider of technologies and services to enable the development of better biopharmaceuticals, has announced the formation of a new company, Abzena Limited. The new company has been created to provide a strong group identity across its two wholly owned subsidiaries, PolyTherics and Antitope, following their combination in July 2013.

During the summer PolyTherics’ operations will move from London to the Babraham Research Campus in Cambridge, the current site of Antitope's operations, and thus Abzena's headquarters and major operations will be positioned at the heart of one of the world's leading clusters for biopharmaceutical innovation. It will also grow its operations on the Warwick University Science Park where it maintains a presence following the acquisition of Warwick Effect Polymers by PolyTherics in January 2012.

John Burt, CEO of Abzena, said: “We are delighted to launch Abzena today. We believe there is a real opportunity for the company to capitalise on an increasing need for high quality outsourced early stage R&D capabilities and for Abzena to become a leading provider within this global industry. In PolyTherics and Antitope we have well established, respected brands and a broad range of complementary services and technologies. Our new company and identity will allow us to better communicate our full strengths and meet the significant demand we have seen from existing and new customers and partners.”

Abzena operates a balanced business model that provides strong and growing revenues based on its service business and offers the potential for significant future growth through royalty bearing licences to its technologies. Over the past decade, PolyTherics and Antitope have built a global customer base which includes the majority of the major, international pharmaceutical companies, large and small biotech companies and academic groups.

Abzena’s services and proprietary technologies are aimed at helping our partners identify or create better biopharmaceutical product candidates to advance towards and into clinical development. These services and technologies include immunogenicity assessment, protein engineering to create humanized antibodies and deimmunised therapeutic proteins, manufacturing cell line development; and bioconjugation technologies for antibody drug conjugate development and novel polymers for enhancing the therapeutic properties of biopharmaceutical products.

Matthew Baker, chief scientific officer of Abzena and founder of Antitope, said: “Today’s announcement of the formation of Abzena is an important next step in our strategy to become a leading provider of technologies and services which enable the successful development of biopharmaceuticals. While there will be no day-to-day changes for our existing customers and partners, we believe a new, combined identity provides a strong platform for further growth.”

Abzena is the new name for the PolyTherics group, and is focused on providing proprietary technologies and value-added services to enable the development of better biopharmaceuticals.

Abzena comprises two wholly owned subsidiary businesses – PolyTherics and Antitope – which have established a broad suite of complementary technologies that are designed to improve the chances of successful development of antibodies and proteins with enhanced therapeutic benefits.

PolyTherics specializes in proprietary site-specific conjugation technologies for antibody drug conjugate development and solutions for optimization of the therapeutic properties of biopharmaceuticals.

Antitope is an industry leader in immunogenicity assessment, protein engineering to create humanized antibodies and deimmunised therapeutic proteins and cell line development for maufacture.

The group has built a global customer base over the past decade, including the top 10 pharma, large and small biotech, and academic groups.

Abzena is a privately owned UK company backed by institutional investors including Imperial Innovations, Invesco Perpetual, Mercia Fund Management, Advantage Enterprise & Innovation Fund (managed by Catapult Venture Partners), Capital Fund (managed by YFM), ProVen Growth & Income VCT and Oxford Technology VCTs.