Periodic Reporting for period 2 - PRe-ART-2T (Predictive REagent-Antibody Replacement Technology stage 2-Translation)
Berichtszeitraum: 2023-06-01 bis 2025-05-31
Antibodies are a major line of defence against infection and our bodies can create them (by changing the part of the antibody that recognises the invading pathogen) very quickly to help incapacitate a multitude of biological invaders. Antibodies are also used in medicine and scientific research. PRe-ART and its follow-on project PRe-ART-2T focus on the latter – antibodies for use in scientific research.
There is currently a big difference between antibodies used as medicines, known as “therapeutic antibodies” and those used in research. Like any other medicine, therapeutic antibodies are very tightly regulated and exceptionally expensive. Their high price results from the massive research effort involved in creating and characterising them and especially, in their clinical trials.
In contrast, research antibodies (otherwise known as “reagent antibodies”) are never injected into people but are used to detect proteins of interest in fundamental biological research and in diagnostics. Without them, much research and detection of disease would be impossible. Yet many research antibodies are not nearly as specific as presumed. Many are poorly characterized and in fact, as of 2015, about half of commercial research antibodies were shown not to function correctly. As of 2025, the situation is not much improved. In March 2025, the global research antibody market was estimated to be ~$3.7 billion annually*, of which the top 9 countries in the EU comprise a market of ~$1.5 billion alone*. At 50% non-functional antibodies and current exchange rates, this equates to an annual wastage of approximately €0.7 billion (industrial and academic research spend) each year in the EU alone and that cost is purely for the antibodies. The waste of money on salaries and time on experiments that fail, or worse, experiments that appear to have worked – only to find that they are wrong or can’t be reproduced, is unfathomable. The status quo continues largely because research antibodies are cheap (typically around €300-€500 per sample for common antibodies from a catalogue sold to many customers, while custom-made ones can still cost several thousands). In contrast, typical doses of therapeutic antibodies cost tens of thousands of Euros. The most reputable suppliers have started to guarantee suitable performance for some of their antibodies for specific targets, but those guarantees usually extend only to antibody replacement or refund and do not encompass wasted salaries and time. Research is very rarely funded to the level where purchase of therapeutic-grade antibodies is remotely possible, and so the money just isn’t there to justify the suppliers in making a vast array of high-quality research antibodies.
The purpose of PRe-ART and Pre-ART-2T was to solve this problem. Horizon 2020 FET-OPEN project PRe-ART developed the contributing technologies, while Horizon EU EIC transition project PRe-ART-2T is completing that technology, having tested it in our own and an independent industrial laboratory. We have created a radically new process to make synthetic antibody replacements that have the quality of therapeutic antibodies at the price of standard research antibodies, so that ultimately, all researchers – academic and industrial, can afford high quality research "antibodies" and thus eliminate such terrible wastage. Moreover, for many targets of academic and industrial research interests, no suitable antibodies are available.
We next plan to start a company to sell our antibody replacements, first industrialising the processes (working with initial partners) and then going to the open market to make our antibody replacements available to all research scientists, academic and in companies. From the 2025 marketing figures above, if we captured even 5% of the research antibody market, we would eliminate €35 million of wasted research funds per annum for EU researchers alone, with the potential to eliminate $185 million worldwide.
*360i Research, Research Antibodies Market Global Forecast 2025-2030 (published February 2025). EU-specific market data from Table 5.
There is currently a big difference between antibodies used as medicines, known as “therapeutic antibodies” and those used in research. Like any other medicine, therapeutic antibodies are very tightly regulated and exceptionally expensive. Their high price results from the massive research effort involved in creating and characterising them and especially, in their clinical trials.
In contrast, research antibodies (otherwise known as “reagent antibodies”) are never injected into people but are used to detect proteins of interest in fundamental biological research and in diagnostics. Without them, much research and detection of disease would be impossible. Yet many research antibodies are not nearly as specific as presumed. Many are poorly characterized and in fact, as of 2015, about half of commercial research antibodies were shown not to function correctly. As of 2025, the situation is not much improved. In March 2025, the global research antibody market was estimated to be ~$3.7 billion annually*, of which the top 9 countries in the EU comprise a market of ~$1.5 billion alone*. At 50% non-functional antibodies and current exchange rates, this equates to an annual wastage of approximately €0.7 billion (industrial and academic research spend) each year in the EU alone and that cost is purely for the antibodies. The waste of money on salaries and time on experiments that fail, or worse, experiments that appear to have worked – only to find that they are wrong or can’t be reproduced, is unfathomable. The status quo continues largely because research antibodies are cheap (typically around €300-€500 per sample for common antibodies from a catalogue sold to many customers, while custom-made ones can still cost several thousands). In contrast, typical doses of therapeutic antibodies cost tens of thousands of Euros. The most reputable suppliers have started to guarantee suitable performance for some of their antibodies for specific targets, but those guarantees usually extend only to antibody replacement or refund and do not encompass wasted salaries and time. Research is very rarely funded to the level where purchase of therapeutic-grade antibodies is remotely possible, and so the money just isn’t there to justify the suppliers in making a vast array of high-quality research antibodies.
The purpose of PRe-ART and Pre-ART-2T was to solve this problem. Horizon 2020 FET-OPEN project PRe-ART developed the contributing technologies, while Horizon EU EIC transition project PRe-ART-2T is completing that technology, having tested it in our own and an independent industrial laboratory. We have created a radically new process to make synthetic antibody replacements that have the quality of therapeutic antibodies at the price of standard research antibodies, so that ultimately, all researchers – academic and industrial, can afford high quality research "antibodies" and thus eliminate such terrible wastage. Moreover, for many targets of academic and industrial research interests, no suitable antibodies are available.
We next plan to start a company to sell our antibody replacements, first industrialising the processes (working with initial partners) and then going to the open market to make our antibody replacements available to all research scientists, academic and in companies. From the 2025 marketing figures above, if we captured even 5% of the research antibody market, we would eliminate €35 million of wasted research funds per annum for EU researchers alone, with the potential to eliminate $185 million worldwide.
*360i Research, Research Antibodies Market Global Forecast 2025-2030 (published February 2025). EU-specific market data from Table 5.
Research antibodies are obtained in one of three ways. If an antibody already exists, it can be bought from a catalogue. Some catalogue antibodies have been tested for specificity (depending on the supplier), but many have not. Alternatively, “recombinant” antibodies are discovered by screening a “library” – a mixture of billions or trillions of synthetic antibodies made in the laboratory. These are usually better characterised, but comparatively few are available. If no catalogue antibody is available, a “custom antibody” has to be made either by injecting an animal to raise a polyclonal or monoclonal antibody or screening a synthetic library. Both require purified target protein. Generating a custom antibody is both time consuming and expensive.
We have developed an entirely different process. In PRe-ART, we merged life sciences, protein engineering and computational prediction into a combined technology to create antibody alternatives in lots of individual modules – each binding one component of a protein called an amino acid. Conceptually, these modules can be likened to Lego bricks. In PRe-ART-2T, we have been completing our set of Lego bricks (imagine a whole palette of different coloured bricks). We have also learned a lot about how to build those blocks together effectively. In scientific terms we have learned how to combine the modules, and we have bound target sequences with both high affinity and specificity and have worked with a company to label our antibody replacements in a way that makes them extremely sensitive as detection reagents. At the same time, we have been speaking with venture capitalists (significant funding is needed to create a high-tech company), we have developed a business plan and model and have validated our antibody replacements in an industrial setting. Our ultimate goal is to be able to supply our antibody replacements worldwide to offer both industrial and academic researchers cheap, effective and stable antibody replacements.
We have developed an entirely different process. In PRe-ART, we merged life sciences, protein engineering and computational prediction into a combined technology to create antibody alternatives in lots of individual modules – each binding one component of a protein called an amino acid. Conceptually, these modules can be likened to Lego bricks. In PRe-ART-2T, we have been completing our set of Lego bricks (imagine a whole palette of different coloured bricks). We have also learned a lot about how to build those blocks together effectively. In scientific terms we have learned how to combine the modules, and we have bound target sequences with both high affinity and specificity and have worked with a company to label our antibody replacements in a way that makes them extremely sensitive as detection reagents. At the same time, we have been speaking with venture capitalists (significant funding is needed to create a high-tech company), we have developed a business plan and model and have validated our antibody replacements in an industrial setting. Our ultimate goal is to be able to supply our antibody replacements worldwide to offer both industrial and academic researchers cheap, effective and stable antibody replacements.
Everything within the technical section of PRe-ART-2T is “beyond the state of the art”, since no one else can create antibodies (or their replacements) without a physical, purified target protein or peptide. We only need the target sequence in a text file. There is no target protein, no animal injections or synthetic library screening. We simply assemble the encoding DNA from pre-defined modules, express the gene, purify and check the resulting antibody replacement and it is ready for use. Since the process will ultimately be automated, production will be both very rapid and cheap. Most importantly though, our antibody alternatives will do exactly what they are meant to do. We have assembled significant IP protection for many parts of this process.
It should be noted - our antibody replacements won’t work for everything. They bind linear peptide sequences rather than three dimensional shapes - though, in research, many such linear sequences exist, and many assays convert the targets into denatured forms which make these linear sequences accessible.
It should be noted - our antibody replacements won’t work for everything. They bind linear peptide sequences rather than three dimensional shapes - though, in research, many such linear sequences exist, and many assays convert the targets into denatured forms which make these linear sequences accessible.