Case Study: a well-established public biopharma achieves rapid discovery of functional therapeutic antibodies with Twist Bioscience

Well-established Public Biopharma achieves 87% blocker validation with Twist Bioscience

The customer, a well-established public biopharma company, faced a significant challenge in discovering functional human antibodies against a difficult Type II transmembrane cell surface receptor, a target known for its immunogenicity challenges. After a previous campaign with another CRO failed, they partnered with Twist Bioscience and its Abveris service to leverage a Beacon-based single B cell workflow, requiring human/cyno cross-reactivity, ligand blocking, and on-cell binding.

Twist Bioscience implemented a concurrent immunization strategy using both hyperimmune (DiversimAb) and humanized mice, followed by high-resolution screening on the Beacon platform to identify rare, functional hits. The solution successfully delivered a diverse panel of 45 unique antibody sequences, with 87% of predicted ligand blockers maintaining activity as recombinantly expressed antibodies. The project yielded high-affinity, cross-reactive leads with excellent developability profiles, meeting all of the biopharma's required goals within a tight timeline and providing a strong foundation for therapeutic candidate selection.