AbHelix
Leveraging Fast and Accurate Immune Sequencing Platform to Support Immunotherapy Development

NGS-based BCR/TCR repertoire sequencing (immune sequencing) has enabled the quantitative analysis of adaptive immune responses and transformed basic research, disease diagnostics and immunotherapy development in autoimmunity, infection, vaccination, and cancer. However, the technological complexities in study design, assay development and bioinformatics analysis present key barriers for wide and effective adoption. This is where AbHelix comes into the space and makes a mark.

Founded in 2016, this New Jerseybased company began its journey harnessing the capabilities of genomics to develop innovative treatments that cater to the unmet needs in infectious disease and cancer treatment. It aims to utilize immune repertoire sequencing for therapeutic antibody discovery, dedicating immense efforts to optimizing the sequencing assays and data analytics for a wide range of clinical samples. With time, the company has pivoted to providing its proprietary immunogenomics technology platform to support life science research and therapeutic development. “We are trying to provide our advanced platforms for highthroughput sequence profiling of natural and synthetic immune repertoires” mentions Douglas Zhang, founder of AbHelix.

AbHelix utilizes a combination of optimized sequencing assays and advanced informatics to provide accurate readout of an immune repertoire. With its sample-toinsight technology platform, the company aims to help clients achieve high-quality data and rapid turnaround time, the most pressing challenges in immune sequencing.

AbHelix began its journey as a therapeutic antibody discovery company, harnessing the capabilities of genomics to develop innovative treatments that cater to the unmet needs in this arena

Over the years, AbHelix’s proprietary immunogenomics platform has helped the company win a broad clientele. In one instance, AbHelix’ Human B and T-Cell Profiling Assay was employed by the James Crowe’s group at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in an ultra-deep sequencing study of human BCR repertoires. In another instance, AbHelix supported a large pharma’s clinical studies of T-cell responses from its vaccine trial subjects. “In our published clinical studies of V160, an investigational vaccine under evaluation for prevention of congenital CMV, the AbHelix team’s capabilities in rapid NGS-based immune assay development enabled us to sequence and track human subjects’ TCR repertoires development post vaccination, using very limited clinical specimen. Their sound technical capability and willingness to customize their assays per sample availability are truly remarkable,” highlighted by Dr. Tong-Ming Fu, then lead scientist for the V160 program at Merck & Co.

As AbHelix moves ahead in its journey as an immunogenomics platform company, it looks forward to enhancing the data accuracy and cost aspects of its solutions. The company firmly believes that effective managing PCRand sequencing-introduced errors in immune sequencing remains a crucial challenge in further our understanding of pathogenic and protective immune responses and driving innovations in therapeutics development. “In the past few years, we have made critical enhancements in our immune sequencing assays and data analytics, and we are planning to publicize our platform and rebrand ourselves from a therapeutic company to a technology platform company in 2022,” concludes Douglas.