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Antibody Platform (Supported by HKU Platform Technology Funding)

An advanced monoclonal antibody platform for biopharmaceutical development, medical diagnosis and precision medicine

Background

Monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are the core components of the modern biotechnology industry, and their applications span from research, medical diagnosis, therapeutics, vaccine development, and personalized medicine.  Since the invention of hybridoma technology, mAbs have revolutionized biological research and built the basis for the use of therapeutic antibodies in medicine and for the entire biotechnology industry. In biomedical research, mAbs are being used routinely in almost every laboratory on daily basis, with a total global market value of > 3 billion USD per year. In medical diagnosis, antibody-based immunoassays account for almost 50% of the diagnostic market, and the global diagnostic antibody market was valued at US$ 20 billion in 2017 and is projected to reach US$ 35 billion by 2026. Most importantly, owing to the superior target specificity of antibody therapeutics versus chemical drugs, the therapeutic mAbs are growing at an exponential rate in the past ten years, and are now being used for the treatment of many incurable diseases such as cancer, autoimmune diseases, and neurodegenerative disorders. In 2017 alone, ten therapeutic antibodies were approved in the USA and European Union, and there are over one hundred mAbs currently under clinical trials. According to a recent report, the global mAbs therapeutics market was valued at approximately USD 108.01 billion in 2017. With the rapid development of precision medicine, the discovery of a large number of disease-specific biomarkers with advanced multi-omics technology, and vast investment in the healthcare industry, the market for research, diagnostic and therapeutic antibodies is expecting to grow exponentially in the coming years.

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