SMAs

Bioventix has created a novel sheep hybridoma technology to produce stable and productive cell lines that secrete sheep monoclonal antibodies (SMAs) of very high affinity. The ultra-high affinity of Bioventix’s antibodies facilitates the development of immunoassays of increased sensitivity and precision at Bioventix’s customers.

The technology to create monoclonal antibodies was first described in 1974 by Kohler & Millstein. Their work demonstrated that mouse cells could be created to make mouse monoclonal antibodies in large quantity.

Bioventix technology is related to this early work but focusses on the use of sheep cells to make sheep monoclonal antibodies (SMAs).

Advantages of SMAs

• Ultra-high affinity – SMAs remain bound to their target for longer. This affinity is commonly 10 to 100-fold greater than rodent antibodies.
• Broader epitope recognition – able to recognise ‘difficult’ targets where other antibodies technologies have failed.
• Improved sensitivity – able to bind target analytes rapidly and when target is present at very low concentrations (e.g. hormones).
• Improved specificity – able to exquisitely discriminate between closely related molecules such as drug derivatives.