Dane Wittrup

Overview

MIT bioengineering professor who co-authored with Adimab a landmark study of 137 clinical-stage antibodies demonstrating that cheap in vitro developability assays reliably predict clinical attrition. Dane Wittrup at MIT and colleagues at Adimab analyzed 137 antibodies spanning multiple clinical stages using in vitro assays for selectivity, hydrophobic interaction chromatography behavior, insect cell binding, and long-term stability, scoring poor performance as flags. The study showed that Phase 2 candidates frequently carry three or four developability flags while approved molecules are almost entirely flag-free, and that assays costing a few hundred dollars can reveal risk of failure in a clinical trial costing billions — described by the speaker as a groundbreaking publication. (Discovery-Manufacturing Partnership (25:00-30:00))