AbCellera

AbCellera is a clinical-stage biotechnology company that discovers and develops antibody-based medicines for conditions with high unmet medical need. Founded in 2012 as a spin-out from the University of British Columbia and headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, the company has grown from six founding scientists to approximately 600 people, with additional presence in Montreal, Quebec and Alexandria, New South Wales. Its stated operating model places engineering alongside biology and computation rather than in a support role.

The core of the work is AbCellera's antibody discovery technology platform, which integrates microfluidic single-cell screening, single-cell genomics, and protein engineering into a single pipeline. Since 2015 the platform has been deployed across more than 100 antibody drug programs with over 40 partners. On the discovery side, the hardware/software boundary runs through microfluidic handling and screening of single cells into genomic readouts and downstream protein engineering - a workflow where throughput, assay reliability, and data plumbing all constrain what the biology team can iterate on. A notable deployment: in collaboration with Eli Lilly and through DARPA's Pandemic Prevention Platform, the platform supported the development of two COVID-19 antibody treatments brought to clinic in record time.

The company is fully integrated from discovery through clinical manufacturing, operating a 130,000 sq ft clinical manufacturing facility in Vancouver. Four programs are in the clinic: ABCL635 for vasomotor symptoms associated with menopause, ABCL575 for atopic dermatitis, ABCL688 for autoimmunity, and ABCL386 for oncology. Therapeutic areas on the board include endocrinology and women's health, immunology, oncology, and infectious disease.