Atreca and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have collaborated to accelerate the discovery and development of new vaccines and therapeutics for human infectious diseases using Immune Repertoire Capture technology.
Under the terms of the agreement, Atreca will apply the technology to particular infectious diseases and share the results with the foundation for use in the discovery and development of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics to be deployed in a defined group of countries.
The parties to the agreement in the first four years have decided to focus their attention on malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis.
Atreca chief executive officer, chief scientific officer and co-founder Tito Serafini said, “This commitment from the foundation provides Atreca an opportunity to apply the Company’s Immune Repertoire CaptureTM technology to meet key challenges in global health.”
Immune Repertoire Capture technology helps identify functional antibodies produced in patients during an immune response that have both utility themselves and can also be employed to identify the targets of an immune response.
The technology helps discover and develop antibody-based therapeutics, vaccines, diagnostics, and research reagents.
Atreca has recently licensed exclusive rights to the technology for all fields of use from Stanford University.
Atreca chief business officer and co-founder Paulette Dillon said, “The structure of the agreement facilitates reaching the common goal of improving global health while at the same time allows each party to achieve its individual objectives.”