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Twist Bioscience published on the successful discovery of alpaca-derived VHH antibodies using a disruptive, function-forward in vivo discovery workflow developed by Abveris, also known as Twist Boston, on the Beacon optofluidic platform. The paper, titled "Alpaca Single B Cell Interrogation and Heavy-Chain-Only Antibody Discovery on an Optofluidic Platform," was published in BioRxiv ..Most antibodies contain two variable domains, the heavy and the light chains; however, camelids make antibodies containing just a heavy chain, from which the VHH single domain is derived. The small size of the VHH single domain antibodies allow them to access targets that traditional antibodies cannot, with tight binding affinities and high specificity. In addition, the lack of a paired light chain in VHH single domain antibodies simplifies downstream engineering, accelerating development timelines. In this proof-of-concept study, custom enrichment, culture, detection, and sequencing methods were used to screen single B cells directly from immunized alpacas for target specificity and heavy-chain-only antibody secretion from alpacas immunized with two different targets, either human prostate specific membrane antigen , PSMA or a second blinded target. B cells secreting target-specific heavy-chain-only antibodies were identified, exported, and sequenced...This unique combination of repertoire sequencing and function-forward single B cell screening could be used for antibody optimization by leveraging Twist's library design platform to generate antigen-biased VHH single domain libraries to discover superior variants. In addition, functional validation of these optimized lead candidates could enable downstream development of high quality PSMA-specific VHH single domain antibodies for therapeutic or diagnostic purposes.
Baird analyst Catherine Ramsey Schulte lowered the firm's price target on Twist Bioscience to $29 from $33 and keeps an Outperform rating on the shares. The analyst said management remains constructive on the core business despite some pockets of near-term softness as they begin to ramp Factory of the Future commercial volumes, ultimately reiterating 2023 revenue guidance.
Barclays analyst Luke Sergott lowered the firm's price target on Twist Bioscience to $32 from $37 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares. The analyst says the company's Q2 guidance weighed on the shares. The business is going through a transition and "should be much better on the other side," the analyst tells investors in a research note. The firm expects investors to start buying Twist once they are confident the company "is on course."
Reports Q1 revenue $54.24M, consensus $54.1M. Total orders received for the first quarter were $64.7M. "We had a very good start to the year with solid revenue across SynBio, NGS and biopharma as well as robust orders, setting the stage for growth and advancement across the business," said Emily Leproust, CEO and co-founder of Twist Bioscience. "We shipped our first products out of the Factory of the Future last month, expanded our customer base, entered into antibody discovery and optimization partnerships and are nearing completion of our first proof-of-concept scalable DNA data storage writer."
Barclays analyst Luke Sergott lowered the firm's price target on Twist Bioscience to $37 from $43 and keeps an Overweight rating on the shares ahead of the company's fiscal Q1 results. The analyst sees downside risk to short-term estimates, but says investors are likely to "step in on shares" and look through any Q1 weakness if management's commentary on gross margin drivers are enough to instill confidence in hitting its long-term targets.
Twist Bioscience (TWST) and Centogene (CNTG), the essential life science partner for data-driven answers in rare and neurodegenerative diseases announced the launch of three next-generation sequencing NGS target enrichment panels to support rare disease and hereditary cancer research and support diagnostics. "There are over 7,000 rare diseases impacting over 350 million patients, many of whom are not diagnosed until the late stages of the disease. Our mission is to provide data-driven, life-changing answers as early as possible to ultimately accelerate the development of treatments," said Kim Stratton, Chief Executive Officer at CENTOGENE. "By partnering with Twist to develop these custom panels, we are enabling access to diagnostics and generating novel insights for the medical community, fueled by multidimensional data from the CENTOGENE Biodatabank." All three new Alliance Panels are highly curated using the CENTOGENE Biodatabank, with nearly 700,000 patients represented from over 120 highly diverse countries, over 70% of whom are of non-European descent. Identified sequences are then synthesized by Twist as biotinylated capture probes which are compatible with Twist's library preparation solution and target enrichment workflows. The panels offered through Twist will include:
Twist Bioscience (TWST) announced a research collaboration with Astellas Pharma (ALPMF) to discover antibodies against multiple targets of interest to develop curative therapies for patients suffering from diseases that lack treatment options. "This second collaboration with Astellas demonstrates the power of our antibody discovery capabilities. The depth and breadth of our Library of Libraries enables highly potent antibodies, often missed using other technologies, to be identified across multiple potential therapeutic areas," said Emily M. Leproust, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of Twist Bioscience. "We are looking forward to continuing our working relationship with Astellas and building on the progress made to date in our first collaboration." Under the terms of the agreement, Twist will conduct antibody discovery activities against multiple targets identified by Astellas. In addition to an upfront payment and project specific research fees, Twist will be eligible to receive up to $11M per product through payments associated with specific clinical and commercial milestones. Twist will also be eligible to receive royalty payments on product sales. Astellas will be responsible for the development, manufacturing and commercialization of any such products.
