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New antibody purification robots support further company growth

Absolute Antibody Ltd., an industry-leading manufacturer of recombinant antibodies, has developed custom protein purification systems to significantly increase its antibody production throughput. The automated robots, now installed in Absolute Antibody’s newly expanded, ISO-certified manufacturing facility in Northeast England, will enable further growth for the company’s recombinant antibody products and services.

The two automated robots streamline antibody purification, allowing Absolute Antibody to meet the increasing demand for its recombinant antibody technology. The company first designed a fully automated system capable of purifying up to 24 antibodies at a scale of 80mL in approximately 12 hours. Now, the company has developed a larger-scale purification robot, able to purify 24 antibodies at a scale of two liters in about 24 hours, a task which would take almost a week for one scientist to do manually. Together, these two novel systems significantly increase Absolute Antibody’s production throughput.

“Absolute Antibody is committed to advancing recombinant antibody technology, and our lab has been hard at work developing innovative systems to enable effective production scale-up,” said Dr. Ian Wilkinson, Chief Scientific Officer at Absolute Antibody. “Our new robots provide quick, reliable and cost-effective protein purification, ensuring we can expand our catalog offerings and efficiently deliver high-quality recombinant antibodies to customers.”

Absolute Antibody has grown rapidly since its founding in 2012, offering antibody sequencing, engineering and expression as custom services, as well as a catalog of recombinant antibodies engineered into new formats. This past year, Absolute Antibody produced more than 2,000 different recombinant antibodies, making almost 100 grams of protein in total, and completed a merger with Boston-based Kerafast, Inc., further expanding the global reach of its products and services. The new purification robots and resulting throughput increase allow Absolute Antibody to continue this growth and advance its mission to make recombinant antibodies available to all.