The fork in the road

Access to the next generation of antibody-like assets became more difficult last Friday when GlaxoSmithKline plc unveiled a £230 million ($455 million) bid for Domantis Inc., the developer of domain antibodies (dAbs), the smallest functional binding units of human antibodies. Domantis is still six months away from putting a dAb into patients.

"We were looking to get access to this key technology and Domantis will not only give us a strong foothold in the field, but it almost doubles the number of programs in our antibodies portfolio," said GSK spokeswoman Gwenan White. ...