Stronger Starts for Discovery Programs
Every biologic program starts with a scientific hypothesis and a vision. The right choices and approach to antigen design, format, and feasibility are vital to advancing a project or securing funding.
The challenges are all too familiar and costly. Poor antigen design can lead to low-affinity antibodies, triggering redesigns that stretch timelines and inflate budgets. We bring deep expertise in antibody development to de-risk early decisions and accelerate discovery.
United to strengthen the foundation of biologics discovery
Fortis Life Sciences integrates Bethyl’s validated antibody development, Abcore’s VHH and recombinant engineering, and Arista’s assay-ready reagents into a single coherent workflow that reduces variability, increases reproducibility, and accelerates advancement from discovery to application.
Identifying Discovery Risks Early
Building Discovery on Evidence
Understanding where risk originates is only the beginning. Effective custom antibody development turns insight into structured validation practices that reduce uncertainty, strengthen reproducibility, and support confident decision-making. Addressing common failure points early protects scientific integrity and keeps discovery on a predictable path.
What Successful Programs Do Differently
How to Integrate Feasibility
Feasibility built on evidence strengthens antibody performance across formats, reduces rework, and supports smoother transitions into downstream workflows. Modular, tunable formats, such as recombinant architectures, further streamline workflows and enable consistent results across applications and sites.
1
The Six Pillars of Validation framework
Ensures that analytical data generated at this stage meets consistent standards of specificity, reproducibility, and performance, aligning early feasibility with downstream expectations.
2
Orthogonal validation
Applying orthogonal, antibody-independent validation strategies confirms biological relevance where it matters most, at the point of feasibility, strengthening evidence quality. Recombinant and VHH engineering offer stable, soluble scaffolds that preserve folding integrity and yield, minimizing re-engineering later in development.
3
Assessing biological characteristics
Assessing biological characteristics under relevant conditions, such as drug treatment or hypoxia, anchors feasibility in real-world biology. This approach strengthens confidence in early-stage data and reduces the risk of failure downstream.
Strategic Perspective
“Reliability is built, not bought. True scientific discovery happens when every step is guided by evidence. Our ‘Farm to Bench’ workflow gives scientists control over quality, timelines, and reproducibility. When every variable is accounted for, progress becomes predictable, and discovery becomes repeatable.”
Darcy Birse
General Manager, Antibody Solutions
Proof In Practice
EpiCypher and Bethyl Laboratories partnered to develop custom antibodies for histone post-translational modifications (PTMs), addressing the challenge of reliable specificity in complex chromatin-rich environments through a dual-stage antibody screening process. Bethyl initially screened candidate antibodies using peptides, then nucleosomes. EpiCypher validated their performance using PTM-defined nucleosome controls, selecting top candidates for genomic research applications.
The Fortis Advantage
As a fully integrated organization, we provide farm-to-bench security of supply by owning and managing every step of the process, from animal sourcing through to final assay validation, ensuring unmatched consistency, traceability, and reliability throughout the entire development pipeline.
Built for Your Success
- ~45,000 ft2 advanced lab space
- ~15,000 ft2 large animal handling
- 100+ acres of pasture
- 100’s of acres for expansion
- 9 species housed on-site
Security of Supply
- On-site manufacturing and validation
- 100% vertically integrated
- Complete control of supply chain
- Scalable space and capacity to meet your individualized project needs
Proving Antibodies Are Ready for Scale
Optimization is where early validation is tested for continuity and scalability. At this stage, the goal is to confirm that antibodies can be manufactured reliably and maintain performance across intended applications. Each decision reinforces whether the antibody is ready to advance without requiring rework.
Abcore leads single-domain and recombinant antibody engineering, delivering naturally derived sequences from mammalian systems to reduce re-engineering cycles and improve predictability. Abcore’s scientific team, recognized for pioneering VHH work in camelid-derived scaffolds and conjugation, supports custom antibody projects with modular formats designed for scalability and functional precision.
Benefits
• Modularity and engineerability
• Improved binding to structurally complex epitopes
• Simplified molecular biology workflows for optimization and functionalization
Bethyl Laboratories integrates recombinant antibody production under harmonized validation conditions, ensuring that manufacturability data generated at small scale remain predictive at production scale. Verification processes confirm batch uniformity, minimize formulation iterations, and reduce time to manufacturing readiness.
By thoroughly testing antibody production at small scale under validated conditions, Bethyl helps ensure that early-stage data translate into reliable, scalable outcomes. This testing-driven approach delivers batch-to-batch consistency and minimizes the need for additional optimization cycles.
Benefits
• Predictive data continuity from discovery to scale-up
• Reduced re-engineering cycles during optimization
• Consistent batch quality and faster manufacturing readiness
Immunohistochemistry panels can include validated immune, epithelial, checkpoint, and signaling markers, with options for fit-for-purpose customization tailored to customer needs. Bethyl Laboratories extends this validation framework into immunoassay compatibility testing, ensuring that custom antibodies perform predictably across intended biological systems and detection platforms.
Benefits
• Verification of target engagement in tissue context
• Integrated multiplex and phenotypic validation
• Smooth transition from analytical to biological verification
Strategic Perspective
“We deliver successful antibody services for our customers by designing campaigns around their unique needs, leveraging robust technology platforms, and with end-to-end in-house execution of workflows designed to mitigate antibody discovery risks”
David Potter
Director, Monoclonal Antibody Development
Proof In Practice
Valted Seq applied integrated antibody development and conjugation workflows to evaluate a complex diagnostic target. Abcore-engineered VHH scaffolds and Bethyl lineage-verified antibodies maintained stability and yield throughout conjugation, producing uniform DAR distribution and reducing optimization time by two development cycles.
The Fortis Advatange
By integrating the specialized expertise of Bethyl Laboratories, Abcore, and Arista Biologicals, Fortis Life Sciences helps R&D teams move from feasibility to scalable workflows, driving measurable improvements in performance, efficiency, and development confidence.
Maximizing Return on Early Discovery
Reproducibility is an operational standard that drives development efficiency and program credibility.
Establishing reproducibility early ensures that antibody performance remains consistent across formats, workflows, and sites. When analytical data retain their meaning across teams and technologies, progress accelerates not through repetition, but through confidence in results that hold up at every stage of review.
Strategic Perspective
“In our industry, reproducibility has become a key marker of performance and a hallmark of scientific leadership. It is no longer just a metric; it is the new competitive advantage. Establishing it early turns data into a foundation for alignment between science and business, accelerating development and strengthening confidence in every decision”
Chris Woodward
Senior Director, Sales & Marketing, Antibody Solutions
Proof In Practice
NextPoint Therapeutics partnered with Bethyl Laboratories to advance next-generation immuno-oncology antibodies targeting novel immune checkpoint pathways. Bethyl provided custom recombinant antibodies that enabled NextPoint to explore new ways to activate the immune system against cancer by targeting immune suppression in the tumor microenvironment. Our partnership highlights Bethyl’s role in empowering innovators with precision antibody tools that support immuno-oncology breakthroughs. By leveraging Bethyl’s recombinant antibody technology, NextPoint accelerated its drug discovery pipeline and enhanced the precision of its immune-modulating therapies.
Results
- Facilitated rapid access to high-specificity reagents for complex immune system activation studies
- Delivered custom antibody tools that aligned with NextPoint’s unique immuno-oncology strategy
- Enabled exploration of novel immune checkpoint pathways with precision-engineered recombinant antibodies
The Fortis Advantage
Integrated Capabilities
We help antibody programs move from feasibility to optimization by aligning antibody engineering, analytical validation, and functional testing within a reproducibility-driven framework and enable early scientific rigor that translates into scalable, cost-effective development.
The Six Pillars of Validation framework ensures antibody specificity, reproducibility, and reliability in assays such as immunoblotting, immunohistochemistry, and ELISA. Each project applies the validation principles most relevant to the antibody’s intended application and performance requirements, ensuring consistency, reproducibility, and manufacturability.
- Independent Antibodies: Require multiple antibodies against different epitopes to produce similar results.
- Complementary Assays: Multiple antibody-dependent techniques, like spatial and histological analyses, yield consistent findings
- Orthogonal Characteristics: Antibody-independent data (e.g., mRNA or mass spectrometry) correlates with antibody results.
- Biological Characteristics: Leveraging known biological conditions (e.g., drug treatment or hypoxia) to confirm target expression.
- Protein Over-Expression/Epitope Tags: Using overexpressed proteins to validate specificity and rule out cross-reactivity.
- Genetic Strategies: Employing gene knockouts or knockdowns to confirm the presence of the target protein.
Sustaining Stronger Programs
To further support your goals, we are extending a Service Advantage Offer providing discounts on all Antibody Services. Our offer enables you to maintain validated reagent quality throughout discovery, characterization, and conjugation phases while controlling project costs and variability.
Get preferred pricing on our integrated antibody services through December 31, 2025.
- VHH Discovery Services – Identify high-affinity binders using the AbNano™ phage display platform. Solid Phase Panning: $10,000 | Solution Phase Panning: $15,000.
- Spatial Biology Characterization – 20% preferred pricing on high-plex and multiplex imaging with analytical support across immune, oncology, and signaling panels.
- Custom Antibody Development – Preferred pricing available for new polyclonal, monoclonal, and recombinant projects initiated before 12.31.25.
- Catalog Antibodies - 30% discount on all antibodies and ELISA kits validated for consistent performance.
Restrictions apply. Void where prohibited.
References
- Evitria AG. Why promising antibody candidates fail clinical trials. 2025 [cited 2025 Oct 24]. Available from: https://www.evitria.com/therapy-development/why-promising-antibody-candidates-fail-clinical-trials
- Jain T, Sun T, Durand S, Hall A, Houston NR, Nett JH, et al. Biophysical properties of the clinical-stage antibody landscape. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017;114(5):944–949.
- Bailly B, Mieczkowski C, Monnet C, D’Amelio N, Fournier N, Corvaïa N, et al. Predicting antibody developability profiles through early-stage discovery screening. mAbs. 2020;12(1):1743053.
- Zhang W, Luo Q, Khamlichi S, McCarthy D, Nowak C, Goodall M, et al. Developability assessment at early-stage discovery to enable development of antibody-derived therapeutics. Antibody Therapeutics. 2022;5(5):248–260.
- Kahn B, Solache A, Bradbury ARM. Antibody characterization is critical to enhance reproducibility in biomedical research. eLife. 2024;13:e100211.
- Fritschy JM, Bradbury ARM, Solache A, et al. Improving the integrity and reproducibility of research that uses antibodies. Front Mol Biosci. 2024;11:1363521.
