Successful exit: adivo joins Zoetis
adivo’s team and platform will strengthen Zoetis’ capabilities in therapeutic antibody drug discovery for companion animals
adivo GmbH, a leader in discovering species-specific therapeutic antibodies for pets, announced that it is part of Zoetis, the world’s leading animal health company. HTGF and the existing investors OCCIDENT and MorphoSys AG sold their shares as part of the deal. HTGF was one of the first investors and has been a close supporter of the team since the seed investment in 2018.
adivo and Zoetis have collaborated since 2021 with respect to both canine and feline antibody discovery. In addition to successful research collaborations, adivo’s proprietary drug development activities led to a promising portfolio of antibody drug candidates in oncology and inflammatory diseases with a first-in-patient study to treat canine solid tumors initiated earlier in 2023. adivo will act as one of Zoetis’ innovation hubs for antibody drug discovery with its more than 1,000 m2 of lab space in Puchheim, Munich.
“We founded adivo with the vision to bring the benefits of next-generation monoclonal antibody therapeutics to pet owners and their beloved companion animals worldwide. Joining Zoetis means together we have multiple approaches to delivering more gold standard species-specific therapeutic antibodies to companion animals,“ commented Dr. Kathrin Ladetzki-Baehs, Founder and CEO of adivo. “I couldn’t be more proud of the adivo team’s accomplishments after only some five years of operations and with a minimal seed financing to start our journey. I look forward to seeing what our team can achieve as part of a leading organization with global reach while continuing to grow in one of the premier biopharmaceutical hubs in Europe.”
“As the world leader in animal health, we are always exploring business development and external innovation activities that can complement our internal research and development capabilities,” commented Rob Polzer, Executive Vice President and President of Research and Development at Zoetis. “Adding adivo to our R&D organization brings in unique platforms that may accelerate our research and portfolio to potentially help us address our customers’ unmet needs in oncology, inflammatory diseases and other areas, and we are excited about the possibilities ahead.”
Dr. Angelika Vlachou, Partner at HTGF, comments: “We are thrilled to see that adivo with its excellent and powerful technology was acquired by Zoetis. As an early backer of adivo it was impressive to accompany the fabulous development in the last years, and the acquisition by Zoetis is now the next logical step to bring the next-generation antibody therapeutics closer to the use in veterinary patients.”
Since its foundation in 2018, adivo has established two leading technology platforms for the de-novo identification of species-specific antibody drug candidates with optimal functionality, developability and low risk of immunogenicity. Both technologies, CEASAR and FELIX, represent the first phage display antibody libraries for selecting drug candidates against a broad range of diseases affecting dogs and cats, respectively. The founding team, Dr. Kathrin Ladetzki-Baehs and Dr. Markus Waldhuber, attracted seed investments by High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF), OCCIDENT and MorphoSys AG and managed adivo’s growth to the roughly 25 people team of today.
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Topic world Antibodies
Antibodies are specialized molecules of our immune system that can specifically recognize and neutralize pathogens or foreign substances. Antibody research in biotech and pharma has recognized this natural defense potential and is working intensively to make it therapeutically useful. From monoclonal antibodies used against cancer or autoimmune diseases to antibody-drug conjugates that specifically transport drugs to disease cells - the possibilities are enormous
