IBSA and Choose Life BioTech: A Partnership Driven by Innovation

In 2022, IBSA announced the formation of a strategic alliance with the Ticino-based start-up Choose Life BioTech SA (CLB), setting an ambitious goal: to develop new preclinical research projects in the promising field of immunotherapy. Driven by the forward-thinking vision of IBSA’s Founder, Arturo Licenziati, the company decided to invest in a cutting-edge technology, actively supporting centres of excellence capable of transforming modern biomedicine.

Four years on, that bold venture has proven to be a success. Backed by the strength of its partnership with IBSA, CLB has exceeded development expectations and reached full operational capacity. This rapid expansion recently prompted a move to new premises in Bellinzona (Switzerland) and has attracted a dedicated team of ten scientists from across the globe, firmly consolidating the Ticino hub as a European centre of excellence for preclinical development.

In four years, CLB has built a database of four physical libraries containing approximately 15 billion nanobodies. It is one of the very few platforms of its kind in Europe, and one to which IBSA has direct access.

Thanks to this asset, the collaboration between IBSA and CLB is delivering concrete results. A joint project on metabolic diseases is progressing very well and will shortly begin the crucial in vivo testing phase, while research activities on exploring molecules for inflammatory diseases are continuing to advance in parallel.

To fully understand the value of these achievements, and why IBSA chose to be a pioneer in this field, one must look at the evolution of biological therapies. Historically, following the first studies on sera in 1890, the revolution of recombinant monoclonal antibodies arrived in 1975. However, it was not until 1993 that science discovered nanobodies (originally identified in alpacas): agile, robust molecules that are considerably smaller than traditional monoclonals.

As Tiziano Fossati, Head of Products Development at IBSA, explains: “Nanobodies were discovered twenty years after monoclonals, and this is one reason why they now represent such a rapidly expanding sector. In 2022, the year we began our partnership with CLB, there were fewer than ten molecules in clinical trials; today, there are three medicines on the market, and the entire pharmaceutical industry is investing heavily. We are delighted to have spotted this trajectory years ahead of the curve.”

CLB’s flagship feature – and a point of perfect alignment with IBSA’s Caring Innovation philosophy – is the adoption of alternatives to animal models for discovery and production. Instead of extracting antibodies from animals (a process that carries ethical considerations, lengthy timelines, and risks of adverse human reactions), CLB utilises advanced in vitro techniques for the preclinical development phase:

• Gene synthesis: A DNA sequence is constructed in the laboratory, containing the instructions to produce billions of different nanobodies.
• Phage display: This DNA is inserted into phages (viruses harmless to humans) so that each phage displays a single nanobody on its surface.
• Selection and production: Through extremely precise process of “magnetic fishing”, only the phage carrying the nanobody capable of targeting a given disease is isolated. It is then inserted into a bacterium which, by multiplying, acts as a genuine “biological factory” to produce the exact nanobodies required for treatment.

Building on their highly successful collaboration, IBSA and Choose Life BioTech are already planning the next stages of the collaboration.

This enthusiasm is shared by Luca Varani, Chief Scientific Officer and Founder of CLB, who noted: “The collaboration with IBSA was fundamental to our start-up. There is mutual trust and openness. It is exciting to know that there are companies like IBSA that strive to do something new and believe in the importance of research.”

It is a long-term vision echoed by Vincenzo Martino, President and co-founder of CLB: “Four years after the start of our partnership with IBSA, we can say we have built a robust organisation in Ticino, executing innovative projects that few other entities in Europe have the capacity to undertake. Our vision is to cultivate a stable, local organisation that can cover the entire lifecycle of preclinical biological development.”