China's WuXi Biologics has signed a research service agreement with Germany-based BioNTech SE, a next generation immunotherapy company pioneering novel therapies for cancer and other serious diseases.

Under the terms of the agreement, WuXi Biologics leverages its proprietary antibody discovery technology platforms to discover two undisclosed targets of preclinical investigational monoclonal antibodies for BioNTech to develop next-generation therapeutic product candidates.

WuXi Biologics will receive a $20 million upfront payment for granting exclusive rights to these investigational monoclonal antibodies to BioNTech and is eligible to receive additional payments, including payments for research, development, regulatory, and commercial milestones, as well as tiered royalties.

WuXi Biologics offers a full spectrum of both end-to-end and modular discovery services – from idea to preclinical candidate identification – using industry-leading technology platforms and comprehensive discovery capabilities. The company's discovery technology platforms for the generation, characterisation, engineering, optimisation and selection of novel antibody and biologic therapeutics include: hybridoma technology; single B cell cloning technology; phage display and yeast display technology; immune and synthetic human scFv and VHH libraries; human IgG transgenic platforms through an OmniAb and Alloy partnership; WuXiBody and SDarBody bispecific/multispecific antibody platforms; and other antibody and biologics generation and optimisation technologies. All technology platforms are supported by WuXi Biologics' comprehensive research material generation and assay development capabilities.