Absolute Antibody and Kerafast Merge to offer cutting-edge research tools

Absolute Antibody and Kerafast Merge to Increase Access to Unique Reagents and Recombinant Antibody Technology

February 12, 2018. 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 specialises in the sequencing, engineering and recombinant production of antibodies. Their catalogue 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, humanisation and more.

Kerafast has been growing a catalogue 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 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.