Trans-Phage Technology^®

Trans-Phage Technology is a high-throughput method for rapidly creating large volumes of high-affinity, fully human antibodies to validate genomic targets and identify promising drug candidates. Trans-Phage Technology combines the immunological power of Medarex Inc.’s UltiMAb^® Human Antibody Development System with the speed of Biosite’s Omniclonal^® phage display technology.

Medarex’s patented UltiMAb technology is a stable transgenic mouse system that rapidly creates high-affinity, fully human antibodies instead of mouse antibodies. Using standard, well-proven laboratory techniques, novel human antibodies are produced against a target antigen in a matter of months. Directly generating fully human monoclonal antibodies eliminates the need for humanization or complicated genetic engineering.

Biosite’s Omniclonal antibody technology employs proprietary phage display capabilities and a highly efficient antibody expression and purification process to rapidly generate custom antibody libraries from the array of antibody RNA created by UltiMAb mice. The custom expression libraries contain a diverse mixture of thousands of antibodies exhibiting a defined affinity and specificity selected from a combinatorial library of heavy and light chains derived from the immunized mice.

UltiMAb mice contain key gene sequences from unrearranged human immunoglobulin genes and inactivated mouse antibody genes. The human sequences code for both the heavy and light chains of human antibodies. The human gene sequences function correctly in the mice, undergoing rearrangement to provide a wide antibody repertoire similar to that in humans. UltiMAb mice can be immunized with almost any target protein to create a diverse array of specific antibodies and their encoding RNA. Biosite has developed patented methods that enable the selection of large numbers of different antibodies from the libraries. Following creation of an Omniclonal Antibody Expression Library, desirable high-affinity monoclonal antibodies can be readily selected and evaluated for potential applications.

The unparalleled combination of Omniclonal and UltiMAb technology - Trans-Phage Technology - produces high-affinity, fully human antibodies with substantial diversity and is available for large numbers of targets.

* Trademarks are used with the permission of Medarex