Bethyl Laboratories and Precision BioTools Announce Strategic Partnership to Advance Custom Monoclonal Antibody Development
Collaboration pairs Precision BioTools’ epitope-first discovery platforms with Bethyl’s custom recombinant monoclonal antibody development and manufacturing expertise
MONTGOMERY, Texas and BRANFORD, Conn., Nov. 3, 2026 – Bethyl Laboratories, a Fortis Life Sciences company, and Precision BioTools, an antibody discovery company specializing in epitope-first, site-specific antibody generation, today announced a strategic partnership to advance the development of custom monoclonal antibodies against targets that conventional discovery methods have been unable to address. The agreement combines Precision BioTools’ site-directed discovery technologies with Bethyl’s custom recombinant monoclonal antibody development, production, and validation capabilities.
Through the partnership, researchers can now start custom monoclonal antibody programs built on the combined workflow. The joint offering is designed to deliver antibodies that are both epitope specific and functionally validated, addressing a persistent limitation in early-stage antibody discovery.
Conventional antibody discovery platforms generate binders efficiently but frequently lack the resolution required to direct those binders to specific, functionally critical domains. As a result, programs that depend on precise molecular discrimination often stall in early discovery or advance candidates that fail in application-specific validation.
Precision BioTools: Epitope-First Discovery
Precision BioTools begins the discovery process with the epitope rather than the full-length protein. Its proprietary platforms, EPISOLVE™ for immunogen and antigen design and EPIVOLVE® for immunization and screening, engineer immunogenicity directly at the intended target site. Rather than screening broadly and selecting for specificity downstream, the process is directed toward exact, predetermined molecular sites, enabling the identification of rare, highly functional monoclonal antibodies that other methods routinely fail to recover.
The approach is intended to provide:
- Precision-engineered discovery. The ability to bypass undesired regions on complex target proteins and focus exclusively on sites that drive therapeutic efficacy or differentiation from off-target proteins.
- Access to difficult targets. The generation of robust monoclonal antibodies against challenging cell-surface receptors, alternative spliceoforms, and post-translational modifications, with no detectable off-target binding under validation conditions.
- Accelerated timelines. A reduction in the trial-and-error phase of early discovery, limiting wasted development cycles and advancing qualified candidates into validation more rapidly.
“Our platforms were developed to address the targets where binding alone is not sufficient and site-specific recognition is the requirement,” said Greg Mirando, President of Precision BioTools. “Partnering with Bethyl Laboratories ensures that candidates identified through epitope-first discovery move directly into a development environment capable of preserving that specificity at scale, with no loss of continuity between discovery and manufacturing.”
Bethyl Laboratories: Integrated Development and Manufacturing
Bethyl Laboratories has developed and manufactured antibodies at its Montgomery, Texas facility since 1972. Today the company produces antibodies and antigens for research, diagnostic, and therapeutic customers and provides custom services including monoclonal, polyclonal, and VHH antibody development and antibody conjugation. Every stage of custom development, from immunization and B cell cloning through expression, purification, and application-specific validation, is performed on site by a dedicated project team.
Bethyl additionally applies a validation protocol in which candidates are tested using paired antibodies raised against distinct epitopes, with only those demonstrating specificity advanced for further application testing. Applied to the output of an epitope-directed discovery campaign, this protocol is intended to confirm that the resulting antibody performs as designed in biologically relevant systems.
“For more than fifty years, Bethyl has built its reputation on antibodies that perform consistently, lot after lot,” said Sam Sugerman, Director of Platform Services and R&D of Bethyl Laboratories. “The technologies Precision BioTools brings to this partnership give us control over where an antibody binds at the outset of a program. Combining that precision with our integrated development and manufacturing model allows our customers to pursue targets that were previously considered impractical.”
To learn more, visit Custom Monoclonal Antibodies.
About Bethyl Laboratories
Bethyl Laboratories, Inc. improves lives by supporting scientific discovery through its quality antibody products and custom antibody services. Since its founding in 1972, Bethyl has manufactured all of its antibodies on-site to exacting standards with validation to a range of applications, including western blot, immunoprecipitation, immunohistochemistry, immunocytochemistry, ChIP, proximity ligation assay and ELISA. For additional information, please visit Bethyl Laboratories.
About Precision BioTools
Founded in 2023 in Branford, Connecticut by a team of experienced researchers, Precision BioTools is a leader in epitope-first antibody discovery. Through its proprietary EPISOLVE™ and EPIVOLVE® platforms, the company engineers immunogenicity into epitopes precisely at the target site and nowhere else. Precision BioTools delivers antibodies with high specificity and verified activity in real-world biology settings where other antibody discovery techniques fail. For more information, please visit Precision Biotools.
