Piattaforma Tecnologica Italo Ticinese per la Ricerca e Sviluppo di Anticorpi

The R&D AbITi project aims to create a technological platform for the research and development of therapeutic antibodies, formed by universities, research centers, and small-medium enterprises. The ultimate goal is to position the Italo-Ticinese border area among the European leaders in antibody-based biotechnology. This goal is pursued through two advanced translational research projects carried out in collaboration among all partners. In addition to the technical services offered by this platform, a key role is played by the training of highly specialized personnel with interdisciplinary and cross-cutting skills, currently not sufficiently available in the Insubrian area as well as throughout Europe. Antibodies play a key role in pharmaceutical, diagnostic, and biotechnological fields, with a market of approximately € 250 billion estimated to triple in the next five years. Antibody research and development involve various phases: target and antibody discovery, biophysical, cellular, and in vivo characterization of antibodies, optimization of their therapeutic efficacy through molecular engineering or conjugation with active principles. The skills and facilities necessary for implementing all these phases are individually present in the Insubrian region, but are currently not connected and therefore unaffected. The objective of R&D AbITi is to put these realities in a network, creating a technological platform that can cover all preclinical aspects of antibody development. The region also has expertise in clinical and industrial scale-up, which will be part of the platform's future expansion. Being able to cover antibody development from start to finish, the platform will undoubtedly be attractive to new partners, both academic and industrial, within and outside the cooperation area. In this sense, R&D AbITi aims to be a starting point, not an endpoint. Demonstrations of interest already collected indicate that, once started, financial support can be found from foundations operating in the area and private companies, as well as from national and European programs. R&D AbITi aims to achieve this ambitious goal through: • Implementation of research projects for the development of therapeutic antibodies for prostate and colorectal tumors (~250 thousand deaths and an economic impact of over €20 billion annually in Europe), based on the use of innovative technologies shared among academic research centers and small-medium enterprises with interdisciplinary expertise. • Offering a highly specialized post-university training path, including the acquisition of both technical and soft skills. • Implementation of communication initiatives to make the platform known and encourage the participation of additional partners. The synergistic collaboration between academic and industrial partners from both sides of the border, which has been lacking so far, will be critical to achieving the set goal. The combination of individual partners' skills will yield greater results than the sum of the individual components.By promoting the synergistic use of different skills, the creation of the R&D AbITi platform would place the Insubrian region at competitive levels with more renowned areas such as Zurich, Cambridge, and similar, and would allow for: 1) Immediate creation of 8 PhD positions, between Italy and Switzerland, with shared activities and visiting periods, even in companies, making the training offer very attractive. 2) Continuous training of researchers specialized in antibodies and biotechnology. 3) Development, through shared projects, of new antibody-based therapies against prostate and colorectal tumors. 4) Development of procedures, contacts, and rules that will ease future projects. The R&D AbITi approach is highly innovative for its particular attention to i) interdisciplinarity with translational objectives, ii) transversal skills, with a strong focus on industrial/commercial aspects. The combined acquisition of such skills will increase the employability of trained personnel. Moreover, the network created will constitute the basis of a technological platform to be exploited and expanded beyond the end of the InterReg project. Overall, the project is clearly in line with regional and European objectives to promote translational innovation, academia/industry collaboration, and biotechnologies in the life sciences field.