Zymeworks is a fast-growing biotechnology company with offices in Canada and the US, dedicated to the research, development and commercialization of best-in-class therapeutic bispecific antibodies and antibody drug conjugates for treatment of cancer and autoimmune diseases. Zymeworks is proud to have active collaborations with Merck & Co., Inc., Eli Lilly and Co., and Celgene Corporation, and is committed to making a meaningful difference in the lives of patients everywhere.

History

Zymeworks was incorporated in 2003 to address a need in the pharmaceutical and chemical markets that was not served by the existing protein simulation and engineering approaches. At the time, the market and scientific community were segregated into two very distinct approaches. The first approach included widely distributed, open-source academic projects that were advancing the science at a very rapid pace, however sometimes at the expense of commercially relevant concerns including usability, modularity, documentation, and an overall focus on the needs of pharmaceutical and chemical companies. The second approach included legacy in silico platforms that had been adapted for certain specific commercial purposes, but failed to capture recent advances in protein biochemistry or computing architecture.

Zymeworks addressed the shortcomings of both of these approaches. The ZymeCAD™ platform was designed and built from the ground up to be the most comprehensive platform for in silicoprotein modeling and engineering, incorporating advanced hot spot identification and mutagenesis tools in a modular and scalable platform.

Business Model

Zymeworks' business model leverages its antibody and alternative protein scaffold platforms and focuses on highly-strategic collaborative drug development agreements with pharmaceutical partners and the development of an internal pipeline of antibody and protein-based drug candidates.

Collaborative drug-development agreements with major pharmaceutical companies provide our strategic partners with access to Zymeworks' platform technologies. Zymeworks remains involved throughout the pre-clinical research and development process to provide tailored molecules with best-in-class characteristics such as half-life, effector function, and stability. Throughout the life of the program Zymeworks benefits from up-front payments, near-term milestone revenue, and long-term royalty streams.

For our internal pipeline, by pursuing a best-in-class development strategy, Zymeworks can mitigate the risk and uncertainty associated with new target discovery and validation. As our internal programs reach meaningful pre- and early clinical inflection points, Zymeworks plans to partner the successful candidates to allow us to continue to exploit our core competencies in protein design and optimization.