Fusion Antibodies Share News (FAB)

(Sharecast News) - Fusion Antibodies announced on Friday that its OptiMAL validation project with the US National Cancer Institute (NCI) was progressing as planned.

The AIM-traded firm said the NCI had identified multiple antibody-expressing cells that positively bind to their targets of interest using Fusion's OptiMAL Library.

It said it would now extract and sequence the DNA encoding the antibodies to verify binding and conduct further analyses, a process expected to take several months.

The company said it had received the first batch of isolated cells from NCI, and would continue working on additional batches as they were shipped.

Fusion said it was undertaking the validation work on a goodwill basis to support the verification of the OptiMAL Library.

Meanwhile, NCI would continue screening for additional positive cells against its selected targets, with Fusion assisting in the analysis of the resulting antibodies.

Under the existing collaboration agreement announced in November 2023, NCI has access to OptiMAL for the discovery of novel antibodies targeting cancer-related proteins.

NCI is the primary US federal agency for cancer research and training.

"We are excited by the prospect of analysing the antibodies from these OptiMAL cells selected by Dr Mitchell Ho's group at the NCI," said chief scientific officer Richard Buick.

"The cells have shown positive binding activity to their target of interest and Fusion will now work on the validation of the antibody binding.

"We look forward to assisting the NCI in the validation of the OptiMAL platform under the agreement."

At 1151 GMT, shares in Fusion Antibodies were up 4.94% at 8.5p.

Reporting by Josh White for Sharecast.com.