Medicon Valley Alliance, in collaboration with Probio, is pleased to invite you to an inspiring morning meeting focusing on next-generation strategies in early-stage therapeutic antibody discovery.
The meeting will highlight how functional screening can fundamentally improve lead generation by addressing one of the key bottlenecks in antibody discovery: the low proportion of functional clones among common binders. By shifting focus earlier in the screening funnel, it is possible to save both time and resources while increasing the likelihood of identifying truly desirable candidates.
Functional screening is the most critical step in early-stage therapeutic antibody discovery. Currently, most lead generation strategies start with screening for binders, followed by functional characterization with purified antibody. This process provides a comprehensive screening funnel to narrow down the candidates in a step-by-step fashion. However, functional clones only represent a very small fraction of common binders. This workflow not only takes significant time, but also results in substantial waste of resources spent on those non-functional binders.
During the session, we will explore practical functional screening solutions that can be broadly applied across antibody discovery platforms, enabling more efficient and accurate identification of high-quality therapeutic candidates.
Date: Tuesday, 3 March 2026
Time: 8:30 – 11:00
Venue: Medicon Valley Alliance, Arne Jacobsens Allé 15, 2300 Copenhagen S, Denmark – Hub 2
Program
| 8:30 | Networking, registration and light breakfast |
| 9:00 | Welcome and introduction to Medicon Valley Alliance David Munis Zepernick, Director, Member Engagement & Communication, Medicon Valley Alliance |
| 9:05 | ProBio Introduction: Nicolas Siami, PhD, Business development Manager Europery |
| 9:10 | From Concept to Candidate: ProBio’s Solution of Functional Lead Discovery For Next Gen Therapeutics Derek Chen, PhD, Sr. Director, Antibody Drug Discovery Dept. |
| 10:10 | Questions |
| 10:30 | Networking |
| 11:00 | End of Good Morning Meeting |
Speakers
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Nicolas Siami, PhD, Business Development Manager Europe at ProBio Nicolas oversees Business Development for ProBio across the Nordics region, France, Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe. He is your main point of contact for ProBio’s Discovery service lines, including: Antibody lead generation, optimization and Pharmacology & Discovery Reagent Service. He also supports programs involving novel biologic modalities, such as Discovery of Bispecific Ab, CAR Lead, In Vivo CAR-T, VHH, ADC and TCR Engineering. Nicolas is a Veterinarian by training and holds a PhD in Cellular & Molecular Biology. He brings over 10 years of experience in the biotechnology sector. |
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Dr. Derek Chen, Sr. Director of Antibody Drug Discovery Department of ProBio Dr. Derek Chen is the Sr. Director of Antibody Drug Discovery Department of ProBio. After obtaining his doctorate in immunology from the University of Massachusetts School of medicine, he joined GenScript in 2015 and has been responsible for antibody drug discovery platform for the past seven years. He has more than 200 project experience in antibody drug discovery and Engineering innovation optimization, as well as five patents related to biopharmaceutical discovery. |
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