About Us - Abzena

Moving medicine forward.

Abzena is the leading fully integrated, end-to-end biologics and bioconjugates CDMO + CRO. We are dedicated to innovating alongside a broad range of customers – from existing and emerging biotechs, academia, through to global pharmaceutical companies - let’s keep moving medicine forward, offering life-changing treatments for patients in need.

Opportunity is out there to enhance and improve patients’ lives. Who can you count on to start smart and get you across the finish line? At Abzena, we combine integrated program expertise and facilities, deep scientific knowledge, and insight across biologics and bioconjugates to help you navigate complexity with confidence. We anticipate challenges before they arise, enable seamless transfer between development stages, and help accelerate the path from discovery to patient impact. We are as committed to bringing life-changing therapies to patients as you are. We offer fully integrated cell line development, bioconjugation, process development, GMP manufacturing, and growing capacity to move your program forward. Let’s start smart and finish fast.

Since 2001, Abzena has been driven by a simple belief: promising science should have the best possible chance of reaching the patients who need it. For more than two decades, we have partnered with biotechnology and pharmaceutical innovators to overcome the scientific and development challenges that stand between breakthrough discoveries and life-changing medicines. Every day, we help move promising medicines closer to patients by combining deep scientific expertise, integrated development and manufacturing capabilities, and a collaborative approach that brings together scientific and technical expertise, proactive problem-solving, and integrated innovation to streamline development and drive program success.

Abzena remains as relevant today as it was when we were founded: to help accelerate scientific potential into real patient impact. Every milestone achieved, every program moved forward, and every therapy brought closer to approval represents a greater opportunity to improve and extend lives. Moving medicine forward is not just what we do. It’s why we do it.

Our business is designed to meet our customers’ needs across Complex Biologics, Bioconjugates, and Integrated Solutions. Our expertise spans from early development to drug substance manufacturing. We have an established reputation across; mammalian biologics, bioconjugates including ADCs and AOCs, and highly potent active pharmaceutical ingredients (HPAPIs). Across all of these, we deliver integrated solutions to meet our customers’ needs at all development stages, including DNA-to-IND/CTA enabling.

About Abzena

With integrated research, development, and cGMP manufacturing capabilities across San Diego CA, Bristol PA, and Cambridge UK, Abzena helps biotech and pharmaceutical innovators navigate complexity, reduce development risk, and accelerate the journey from discovery to commercial success. Working as one interconnected team, our scientific experts provide the insight, agility, and end-to-end support needed to advance bioconjugate and biologic programs with confidence, bringing life-changing therapies closer to patients who need them most.

Download our corporate brochure to discover how our deep expertise in bioconjugates, ADCs, AOCs, Bispecifics, and other complex biologic modalities helps partners move promising medicines forward faster and maximize their potential for patient impact.

Integrated Biologics Solutions

How can Abzena rapidly advance our next-generation biologic or bioconjugate while reducing risk & ensuring scalability?

Abzena is focused on finding the right solution, at the right development stage, that delivers on your goals. Discover our integrated biologics programs, proven to move medicine forwards faster.

Discovery Services (Hit-to-Lead Candidate)

We provide the optimal foundation for biologic development, reducing risk early and seamlessly advancing programs from discovery through preclinical development and beyond with our integrated discovery services.

Preclinical Development (DNA-to-IND/CTA Enabling)

Accelerate promising biologic candidates toward clinical readiness through integrated DNA-to-IND/CTA programs that reduce development risk, shorten timelines, and help bring innovative therapies to patients faster.

Late-Stage Development (IND-to-BLA)

Integrated IND-to-BLA development programs designed to reduce late-stage risk, accelerate critical milestones, and provide a seamless path to regulatory approval, commercialization, and faster delivery of new medicines to patients.

GMP Commercial Drug Substance Manufacturing

Accelerate commercialization with integrated GMP manufacturing, technology transfer, and regulatory support designed to reduce risk, ensure manufacturability, and deliver quality medicines to patients faster.

What sets Abzena apart?

Access to Genuine Scientific & Technical Experts

We have over 20 years of experience in delivering solutions at each stage of the development lifecycle from early-stage research and discovery, through lead candidate selection, and onward into process development and GMP manufacture.

Unlike most other service providers, we can provide technical and scientific support that truly spans early-stage research through process development and GMP manufacturing under a single organization to better ensure that the TPP can be achieved. Our global scientific teams have extensive experience in overcoming some of the most challenging and complex biologic and bioconjugate programs, making us the perfect partner for novel and disruptive technologies that other biopharmaceutical CDMOs may shy away from.

Proactive Problem Solving to Ensure Downstream Success

Our experienced team is focused on getting it right from the start. We identify and address challenges early in drug design to better ensure downstream clinical and commercial success. We also have expertise in fixing and optimizing drugs in later stage development to rescue them from the drug development graveyard.

Diverse & Interconnected Expertise Under a Single Organization

With capabilities ranging from bioassays to cell line development, bioconjugation and clinical and commercial manufacturing, all under one organization, we can reduce the white space in the development path, which ultimately minimizes risk, reduces costs and accelerates timelines for our customers.

As an integrated service provider, we accelerate timelines through the ease of technical and materials transfer, and improved scheduling. Better workflows and processes can also be attained through improved knowledge transfer between internal multidisciplinary experts and the development of a deep understanding of the drug as it progresses from target to lead selection and process development and manufacture.

Driven by Innovation to Streamline Development

Our team is always seeking new ways to innovate and streamline development for our customers. Our extensive scientific capabilities and proprietary solutions like EpiScreen® 2.0, Composite Proteins™, Composite Human Antibodies™, AbZelectPRO™, ThioBridge™, and LabZient™ are designed to give your program the best chance of clinical and commercial success.

  • EpiScreen® 2.0 — an extensive suite of bioinformatic and primary human cell-based assays for immunogenicity assessment to inform of potential safety and efficacy risks in the clinic.
  • Composite Human Antibody™ — a platform used for designing safer, more effective, humanized antibodies.
  • Composite Proteins™ — a deimmunization technology that designs safer and more effective therapeutic proteins, devoid of human T cell epitopes, to minimize potential immunogenicity in patients without compromising activity.
  • AbZelectPRO™ — rapidly progress your large molecule from DNA to RCB in 10 weeks and GMP in 6 months. Fully integrated CLD from stable pools to MCB solution, that de-risks the path to IND.
  • ThioBridge™ — a next-generation conjugation linker technology proven to enhance ADC development by overcoming issues with existing technologies to improve stability, potency, and efficacy.
  • LabZient™ — our analytical platform that combines predictive in-silico evaluation with laboratory methods to de-risk the application of platform analytical procedures and expedites the pathway to IND.

Our History

We’ve built a fully integrated organization to move complex biologics and bioconjugates ahead.

Abzena History - Timeline of Development

We have over 20 years of experience in delivering solutions at each stage of the development lifecycle from early-stage research and discovery, through lead candidate selection, and onward into process development and GMP manufacture. Learn more about our rich scientific history today!

Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging

Abzena for everyone; bring your whole self to work.

You belong. Building an inclusive culture that fosters, empowers and celebrates the diverse voices of our employees, we embrace your thoughts, experiences and talents. It is our belief that the more inclusive we are, the better we work.

We are committed to creating workplaces that reflect the communities we serve so that everyone feels empowered.

Through our values of quality, scientific innovation and integrity, it is our mission to support and uphold fair and just practices and policies in everything that we do.

Sustainability

At Abzena, we place the highest value on our environmental, health, and safety programs. Our Company’s foundation is built on our values which distinguish us and guide our actions.

  • We conduct our business in a socially responsible and
    ethical manner.
  • We strive to be a responsible corporate steward of the
    the natural environment and consider our commitment to
    environmental management and sustainability an
    important priority.

As Abzena continues to grow and provide essential CDMO services to our partners and their patients, we embrace the opportunity to become an industry leader in corporate sustainability.

Quality

Quality is first – to patients, regulatory authorities, and our partners.

Abzena’s Quality organization provides safe and compliant products to your patients. Our Quality organization has a comprehensive program of quality services to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.

In addition to our expertise, we have the technologies and analytical capabilities to handle any of your modalities; from the simple to the most complex.

Our Locations

San Diego, CA, USA

Development, Manufacturing

Abzena San Diego boasts a trio of cutting-edge facilities designed to accelerate the development, production, and testing of biologics. 

Bristol, PA, USA

Discovery, Manufacturing

At Abzena Bristol, we specialize in bioconjugation, quality linker payloads, highly potent materials and complex chemistry.

Cambridge, UK

Development, Discovery

Abzena Cambridge specializes in the early discovery, design, and development of complex biologics and bioconjugates.