BioCentury
ARTICLE | Emerging Company Profile

Milagen: Antibodies, quick time

July 16, 2001 7:00 AM UTC

Antibodies have been used as biochemical reagents for more than 50 years, but most of the attention for both reagent and therapeutic use has been on monoclonals. Milagen Inc. is using its expertise in rapidly producing polyclonal antibodies to create tools to identify targets for drug discovery and to find disease biomarkers. The company's goal is to create an antibody to every protein in the human proteome.

Milagen's core technology is its ability to stimulate an animal's immune system to rapidly generate high avidity polyclonal antibodies. The company claims to be able to produce 5,000 polyclonals to any protein in just five weeks. According to founder and CEO Moncef Jendoubi, Milagen has generated more than 40,000 antibodies to human proteins since 1997, and expects to have 70,000 by the end of 2002...