Atreca, Inc., Receives $6 Million Investment to Apply Immune Repertoire Capture™ Technology to Prevent and Treat Human Infectious Diseases

Atreca, Inc., announced today a collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to accelerate the discovery and development of novel vaccines and therapeutics for human infectious diseases.

“We are grateful to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for its vision,” said Tito A. Serafini, Ph.D., chief executive officer, chief scientific officer, and co-founder of Atreca, Inc. “This commitment from the foundation provides Atreca an opportunity to apply the Company’s Immune Repertoire Capture^TM technology to meet key challenges in global health.”

Immune Repertoire Capture ^TM technology leverages next-generation sequencing to identify rapidly and comprehensively the set of functional antibodies produced in patients during an immune response. These antibodies both have utility themselves and can be employed to identify the targets of an immune response. Applied to human disease, Immune Repertoire Capture^TM is an engine for the discovery and development of antibody-based therapeutics, vaccines, diagnostics, and research reagents. Atreca recently licensed exclusive rights to the technology for all fields of use from Stanford University.

The foundation’s investment establishes a long-term collaboration between the parties. Under the terms of the agreement, Atreca will apply its Immune Repertoire technology in a particular set of infectious diseases and other conditions, and the Company will share with the foundation the results for use in the discovery and development of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics to be deployed in a defined group of countries. In the first four years, the partnership will focus on at least three diseases identified: malaria, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis.

“Within a very short timeframe, we worked closely with the team at the foundation to bring together our two organizations in a creative manner,” said Paulette Dillon, chief business officer and co-founder of Atreca. “The structure of the agreement facilitates reaching the common goal of improving global health while at the same time allows each party to achieve its individual objectives.”