Biotech company Kling Bio has announced a new collaboration with Sanofi aimed at identifying potent neutralising antibodies against human viral pathogens. The partnership will leverage Kling Bio’s B cell immortalisation and screening platform, Kling-Select, in an effort to accelerate the discovery of first-in-class antibody candidates that could help inform the development of future vaccines and antivirals.

Kling-Select uses patient-derived human B cells to identify rare, functionally significant antibodies and epitopes that may otherwise go undetected by traditional discovery methods. The platform has already been used in the development of antibodies against respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), COVID-19 and influenza, and is now being deployed in a new collaboration with Sanofi.

Under the agreement, the companies will work together to discover and characterise monoclonal antibodies with high neutralising activity. The insights from this process could lead to the development of therapeutic antibody candidates and support more targeted vaccine design.

Unlike traditional screening approaches, Kling-Select enables function-first workflows, focusing on the immune response rather than prespecified targets. This approach has helped identify previously unrecognised viral epitopes with therapeutic potential and may offer a route to improved durability and efficacy in immune-based interventions.

“This collaboration with Sanofi highlights the broad potential of our Kling-Select platform to address global health challenges by enabling the discovery of first-in-class, human-derived antibodies,” said Dr Michael Koslowski, chief executive officer of Kling Bio.

“Kling-Select provides a powerful window into the human immune response and accelerates the identification of functional antibodies and novel epitopes. We are excited to combine our expertise with Sanofi’s leadership in vaccine development to advance next-generation therapeutics and vaccines.”

Kling Bio, headquartered in Amsterdam, focuses on the development of antibody-based drugs for infectious diseases and cancer. Its screening platform aims to address the limitations of traditional drug discovery tools by using immortalised B cells derived directly from patients with relevant immune experience.

The new collaboration with Sanofi adds to a growing list of pharma partnerships focused on expanding the use of functional screening and epitope discovery platforms to accelerate early-stage development and improve the precision of therapeutic design.