Merger brings together Oxford, UK and Boston, MA companies offering cutting-edge research tools

Absolute Antibody Ltd., an Oxford, UK-based company with a vision to make recombinant antibody technology accessible to all, and Kerafast Inc., a Boston, MA-based company with a mission to facilitate access to unique laboratory-made reagents, today announced a merger of the two companies. The merger brings together two companies with a shared commitment to improving the selection of research tools available to the scientific community.

Absolute Antibody specializes in the sequencing, engineering and recombinant production of antibodies. Their catalog offers more than 3,400 recombinant antibodies in new engineered versions, absolutely defined at the amino acid level to ensure batch-to-batch reproducibility. Their custom expression and engineering services have been used by 14 of the top 15 pharmaceutical companies by R&D spend, as well as groups from biotechnology, diagnostics and academia, for projects such as antibody sequencing, chimerization, humanization and more.

Kerafast has been growing a catalog of more than 3,500 unique reagents – including antibodies, cell lines, proteins and more – from prominent research institutions worldwide. The company has established partnerships with 159 institutions to facilitate access to materials developed by their investigators, a model which helps remove traditional barriers to transferring biomaterials among scientists.

The combined company will have offices in both the United States and United Kingdom, enabling a larger global reach, more efficient fulfillment of international orders, and better support for custom service customers. The staff in both locations will work together to further availability of recombinant antibodies and other novel research tools, in particular by licensing antibodies that would be good candidates for recombinant production.

“We are very excited to be joining forces with the Kerafast team,” said Dr. Nicholas Hutchings, founder and CEO of Absolute Antibody. “We believe all researchers should have access to recombinant versions of antibodies, especially those developed in academic laboratories that have been the bedrock of so much scientific research. Kerafast’s strong existing relationships with research institutions will allow us to advance the creation and availability of recombinant antibodies.”

“We are delighted to merge with Absolute Antibody, whose team shares our dedication to helping researchers harness the power of reagents to accelerate scientific progress,” said Dr. Jennifer Rossi, Chief Operating Officer of Kerafast. “Together, our staff will continue to change the way unique and useful research tools are created, accessed and used by scientists worldwide.”

For now, Absolute Antibody and Kerafast will retain their independent names, websites and employees under one umbrella company and will be working to integrate operations over the coming months.

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