A pair of Santa Fe companies this month released software intended to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms speed up the discovery of therapeutic antibodies or diagnostics to help cure or identify diseases.
Developed by Specifica Inc., the AbXtract antibody discovery module is now included in OpenEye Scientific's Orion Antibody Discovery Suite. The combined software offers an easy-to-use interface that includes analysis and reporting functions, and proprietary artificial intelligence methods to analyze large amounts of data.
“For nearly 25 years, world-leading organizations have relied on OpenEye to speed up their small-molecule design efforts in drug discovery,” OpenEye Scientific CEO Anthony Nicholls said in a news release. “With our ground-breaking Orion platform, we can bring new science from exciting companies like Specifica to those customers seamlessly and efficiently. As therapeutic antibody discovery becomes increasingly important for treating disease, it is a privilege to partner with Specifica.”
Initial discussions about combining the software began in spring 2020 and led to a proof of concept later that summer, according to company officials. About a year later, after a period of demonstrations to potential customers, OpenEye Scientific and Specifica Inc. signed a business deal.
“We use next-generation sequencing extensively at Specifica, and initially developed various bioinformatics tools for our in-house research," Specifica cofounder and chief scientific officer Andrew Bradbury said in a statement. "We then realized that many other antibody engineers could benefit and that led to the development of AbXtract."
The software is being marketed to antibody engineers, bioinformaticians, data scientists and artificial intelligence engineers in small-, mid-, and large-cap pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. However, it is particularly suited to generating antibodies from what are called “in vitro antibody libraries,” which Specifica specializes in.
Founded in June of 2016, Specifica is based at the Santa Fe Railyard. The company employs 17 people and expects to add a couple of positions in early 2022.
OpenEye Scientific, meanwhile, was founded in February of 1997. The company is headquarters off New Mexico 14 and employs more than 100 people.
