Roche and Genentech acquire access to OmniRat research platform

Roche and Genentech have agreed a new deal with Open Monoclonal Technology that will give them unlimited access to the innovative OmniRat research platform.

The companies have purchased one of Open Monoclonal Technology's spinoff companies and will now be able to use the platform to generate human therapeutic antibodies for any target and indication, while also further engineering the antibody platform.

OmniRat is the industry's first fully human monoclonal antibody technology based on rats and was originally developed in partnership with Pfizer.

Offering a complete immune system with a diverse antibody repertoire, it is capable of generating antibodies with human idiotypes just as robustly as wild-type animals are able to create rat antibodies.

Dr James Sabry, senior vice-president and global head of Genentech Partnering, said: "We believe that OmniRat is a highly efficient antibody platform that will accelerate our antibody discovery efforts."

This comes after Roche entered into a new research alliance with Polyphor last month to develop a potential new treatment for multi-drug-resistant bacterial infections.