How to Choose a CRO for Antibody Discovery

Your antibody program doesn’t fail because you picked the “wrong platform” as often as it fails because you picked the wrong partner. We get specific about how to choose a preclinical CRO for antibody discovery by starting with the one thing that should drive every decision: the target clinical profile. If the CRO can’t translate your clinical goals into a practical, testable preclinical plan, you’re not buying confidence, you’re buying activity.

We talk about why outsourcing is so common across biotech and pharma, from capital efficiency to speed, and why a disease-agnostic contract research organization can be an advantage when you need battle-tested execution. Then we dig into what “fully integrated” really means in biologics development: not just finding antibody sequences, but carrying knowledge into functional assays, pharmacology, stability, developability, and the steps that support IND-enabling work.

We also cover the biggest traps buyers fall into when comparing CRO quotes. A low price can hide missing deliverables, thin characterization, or a handoff that leaves you hunting for the next vendor. You’ll hear the exact questions we think you should ask before you sign: what you get at the end of the first round, what minimum product is delivered if the campaign underperforms, who runs your program, and whether the CRO can clearly explain the pros and cons of different antibody discovery approaches for your target. If you find this useful, subscribe, share it with a teammate, and leave a review with the one CRO question you wish you had asked sooner.

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Transcript

Welcome And The Core Question

Eric Furfine 0:04

Hi, I'm Eric Furfine. Uh, I'm the Chief Scientific Officer at Mosaic Biosciences, Worb Drug Discovery CRO in Boulder, Colorado. And uh we're gonna talk about the science and strategy of making medicines, protein therapeutic medicines. And um today we're gonna kick off that uh conversation with how to decide to pick a CRO to help you discover an antibody. Um and with me today, I have Mara Sprouse, uh one of our commercial experts, and we're gonna have a chat about what goes into thinking about choosing the right CRO for your project. And um I think uh maybe we'll just kick it off. I think as as Mara in her uh work here gets a lot of questions from early stage biotech companies that come in and are looking for the ability to try and discover new anybody, and they ask her a lot of questions. And maybe Mara, you could kick it off by talking a little bit about the kinds of questions you get.

What A Preclinical CRO Does

Mara Sprouse 1:10

Yeah, I think, you know, first of all, we often have to uh describe, you know, even what a CRO is. We think in the industry that's a pretty standard term, but you know, there's CROs at the clinical stage, or as we are at the preclinical stage. And when we start to describe that we're a fully integrated organization, you know, we take people from concept all the way through ID enabling studies. We get the question of what does that fully integrated uh platform look like? What does that mean to us and what does it mean to our customer? So I would put that back on you because you, you know, really founded this and helped do that integration.

Eric Furfine 1:47

Yeah. Well, you know, one of the things that we think is important is really understanding what the needs of our partners are. And that's where, you know, our scientific expertise comes in. We need to dig into the details of exactly what the properties of the medicine are. Once you understand essentially the clinical profile, and that is the important thing, the target clinical profile. Once you know what this is going to do or what you'd like it to do clinically, then you can design what you want to do pre-clinically to give yourself the best chance at doing that. So for me, the first step in in knowing whether the CRO is right for you or not is whether they're really trying to understand what your goals are so that they can match their ideas on the best technologies to use to meet your goals.

Mara Sprouse 2:36

Yeah. And I think, you know, having that clinical insight from the very beginning is something that Mosaic brings through our, you know, drug hunters, Eric being one of them, uh, and and really understanding, yeah, what does it take to get something to the clinic and putting that all the way in the beginning of the thought when we're discovering drugs for our partners.

Why Biotech Outsources Drug Discovery

Mara Sprouse 2:56

So why are you know early stage partners, and I mean, not just early stage, right? There's outsourcing across the industry, large pharma, mid-size uh virtual biotechs, why are they outsourcing in the first place?

Eric Furfine 3:08

Well, I think the most cost-effective and what the term our companies like to use and investors like to use is capital efficient. I think building an organization from scratch these days, finding uh your scientists to work in laboratories, finding laboratories for them to work in, buying equipment, training them, the whole thing, giving them stock options, which is a non-trivial uh investment, you know, it just costs a lot more money to do that, to build it from the ground up. And you're hiring people who are not necessarily quite as skilled in the art as when you go to a CRO who do these things for a living all the time for many people. You're really getting the cream of the crop in terms of technical capabilities when you come to a CRO. And so why try and build that yourself when it's already commercially available to you for less than you can do it yourself?

Mara Sprouse 4:02

Yeah. And I think speed, right? Like today, speed is huge, which is how fast the market's moving. I mean, we all know that it's not um, you know, the the most uh funding-rich environment right now. And so speed is everything. And working with a CRO that has the expertise in doing this, and another advantage of it, right, is like because mosaic is a disease agnostic CRO, we work across disease indications. And so we can apply those learnings from other diseases to, you know, this disease area you might be working in. And so you really do get a depth of expertise that you don't find just from hiring individual candidates. And we are ready to start immediately. And that's where the speed comes in.

Eric Furfine 4:43

I I agree. Speed is is of the essence and speed and flexibility and the types of technologies you can use. And it comes back to also really understanding what you're trying to accomplish again. And um, some technologies are going to be good for making antibodies to certain targets. Um, some types of technologies to modify or optimize your antibodies uh are important to keep in mind when you're uh choosing a certain biology to augment or not. And so that's when you come to Mosaic, really, you get that kind of full package of things. And that's why I think it's important when you talk to a CRO that they really understand what you're doing so that they provide you with the right approaches to solve your problems and move as quickly on them as possible.

Mara Sprouse 5:33

Yeah.

Integration And Knowledge Transfer Matter

Mara Sprouse 5:34

And I mean, that kind of speaks to maybe one of the most common mistakes, right? So speed is important, price is important, but those aren't the only factors that you need to take into account, right? Making sure that it's the right fit, that the CRO you're working with really understands what you're trying to achieve, going back to earlier in the conversation, really understanding what your clinical, you know, what you're trying to achieve clinically, um, and building that in from the beginning.

Eric Furfine 5:58

And I I think the the other thing to think about is, and and maybe this is what's important uh in in another aspect, and you can create a lot of ways, but the connectivity of the team that's working on discovering your antibody, because it's more than just discovering your antibody. There are a lot of things that happen, have to happen downstream from that. You have to get the biology proven. You want somebody who discovered the antibody to transfer the knowledge that came with that discovery to the people who are doing the pharmacology experiments, to the people who are doing the stability studying experiments, to the people who are doing the, you know, commercial manufacturing. And what's nice is to have that integrated where those people have worked together before, they know each other, and they're wanting to share that information. Uh, we believe having a CRO that really is fully integrated, that is end-to-end, provides you just a higher probability of success of getting to what you want at the end of the day.

Mara Sprouse 6:55

Yeah, absolutely. Um, so another question that I get asked all the time, right, is you know, how is mosaic differ? There's a number of CROs out there. We all have sort of our niche space that we work in. So what does a good CRO relationship look like? We hear this idea of, you know, CROs are transactional and that kind of thing. And in Mosaic, I would argue we're different, right? I've been here for many years now. And um, but from your perspective, like how is Mosaic different uh when it comes to sort of our collaboration with our partners?

Eric Furfine 7:28

I think, you know, we like to have our partners feel as if we're an extension of their company. I think that's that's really a critical element to increasing the probability of a success, making sure we're delivering the product that they want, making sure we agree with our analysis of the data. We want more brains on uh on this and as many as we can with within reason. And having our partners contribute to us uh doing our work is, I think, just a better way to get the job done. There are gonna be lots of things that they know that we don't know. There's gonna be lots of things that we know that they don't know. And it's the combination of that and working together in that collaborative manner all along the process is really gonna, again, increase your probability of success.

Mara Sprouse 8:19

Yeah, definitely. I mean, coming from the science side before I transitioned into my commercial role now, I I love that interaction that we, you know, have with our partners. So many deep scientific conversations and just that fun, like back and forth banter that you'd get with, you know, troubleshooting and and just coming up with sometimes wild ideas of, you know, the next direction that we can take it. And um, yeah, it's fun. I this is uh I think a unique CRO for sure in the way that we partner with our customers.

Eric Furfine 8:48

I

Price Traps And Missing Deliverables

Eric Furfine 8:49

think, you know, there's a lot of considerations as we we've just discussed in in doing this, but you I think you know, what we should talk just a little bit about the the pitfalls that that one can can make. And you know, a lot of times you can find CROs that are um will do things for a very reasonable price, let's just say. And um price is important and uh the competition in in in the market for discovering antibodies is is substantial. And so there are there are competitive price competitive uh situations. But there's two things that you need to think about. One is when you see the price, make sure you know what you're getting for that price. You know, you sometimes you see a price from one and a price from other. Make sure you're getting the same thing for that price. You know, um, a lot of times you're just not going to get quite as far down the road as you think with a vendor, and the price looks really good, but then you realize that uh when when you're finished with that work, there's all this other work that still needs to be done to actually even get you the antibody, you know. Yeah. Um, so that's that's one really important factor. And the second is you know, how much testing can that CRO do to make sure that the molecules that they're identifying really have the properties that you want? That's an important uh consideration. It comes back to the integrated workflow end-to-end service that we have here is we think a lot about what has to happen downstream and who's gonna be collaborating and who's gonna be working together to make sure that the right information gets accumulated for you to make the best decision on which antibodies to move forward.

Mara Sprouse 10:41

Yeah. Yeah, I think to that point, right? Really understanding what the deliverables are. You know, as I've seen it, you know, working with customers a lot, you know, we hear about, oh, you know, X, Y, and Z has promised us this for this price. And I think really understanding, you know, what are you getting out of it? What is the deliverable? Are you just getting sequences? Are you getting recombinant protein out of it? You know, are they doing characterization, developability, all those downstream things? You know, when when we scope out a project, we are really thinking through like, how do we get you to a meaningful decision point, right? Just any antibody sequences. I mean, great, you got hits, right? But it doesn't tell you anything about the antibody. Does it bind the target? Does it do the biology you need it to do? And so we really try to build, you know, these comprehensive workflows that get you to a functional answer. And it does usually come with a little higher price tag, but you get a lot more in terms of deliverables.

Eric Furfine 11:32

That's right. And so, you know, it's about at the end of the day, it's about probability of success. You want to get the thing you're looking for. If you go to a CRO that gets you part way there, and then you got to find a bunch of other people who can help you get the rest of the way, well, maybe you will or maybe you won't, because you don't know that you did the right background work in the first place before you move on to your next CRO that's helping you with all these other things.

Mara Sprouse 11:56

Right.

Due Diligence Questions To Ask

Eric Furfine 11:58

One one other thing we should talk about, and and Mara, I think this is this is something you can certainly comment on. You know, before uh uh a partner signs on with a CRO, um, what are things that they ought to ask about?

Mara Sprouse 12:14

Yeah. I so like what we were just talking about, right? Like what are your campaign deliverables? And, you know, if if I want to take it further than that, when are you capable of doing that downstream characterization? And what is the cost beyond that point? Right. It's it's easy to understand for just this uh, you know, hyper focus. This is the the point I need to get to. What does that cost look like? But really understanding what it's gonna take to get to that lead candidate, I think is a good question. Um, also, you know, have they worked with difficult targets? I think, you know, as we discover more and more targets in the industry, they're getting more difficult. And knowing that the partner you're working with actually has experience doing that. And, you know, show me the data, right? Like that is so important. Um, and then who's gonna be running your program? Right. Um, I think something, you know, that which maybe don't talk about enough at Mosaic is it's something like 80% of our scientists hold higher degrees in, you know, biochemistry, immunology, protein sciences, or chemistry. I mean, when you work with mosaic, and you know, this is a question you should just ask globally when you're working with any CRO is who's gonna be running your program? Is it primarily senior scientists, principal scientists? What is the oversight in the program? You know, who's looking at the data, reviewing it, approving it before it goes to you, you know, and and really what is the thought that goes into it? Or, you know, is data gonna be lobbed over the fence to you and then you're left on your own to sort of decipher the meaning?

Eric Furfine 13:46

That's right. Yeah, you want a close partnership. I agree 100%. And hopefully, um, once people weigh all the factors, you know, the price, the speed, the competency in in really getting you and understanding what your needs are as a as a partner, um, what does the medicine look like? And, you know, getting that actually helpful strategic advice sometimes can can be good in a CRO that that you don't always get in some of them where it's really more of a technical technical group that has an interesting technology, but are they really, you know, layering in the biology knowledge that you need them to to make sure they're picking the right things?

Mara Sprouse 14:29

Yeah.

When Campaigns Fail And How To Pivot

Mara Sprouse 14:30

I think another question that I you know come across when I'm talking to uh potential customers too is what happens if my program, you know, they use the term fails, um, but if it doesn't yield, you know, what they were expecting? What does that look like?

Eric Furfine 14:46

Yeah, I mean, that that is a a tough situation. I mean, not everybody in not every antibody campaign uh works out the way you want. There are targets that are hard. And um one thing that, you know, I think it's important to know is that what is the minimum product that they're gonna deliver to you at the end of the day? You know, how much work are they gonna do for the investment? Now, it's possible that that work won't find you what you want. And so then you have to ask yourself the question are there reasonable other experiments that we could do? Those will, unfortunately for the partner, cost more money, but sometimes that's a necessary evil when you know you you are working on a very difficult target or looking for a particular epitope or um uh a really differentiated molecule compared to the other ones that are out there that maybe you're competing with. Um, so sometimes you have to do more than one round to make sure you get to to where you want to go. But you need to understand before you start, at least, what is that first round that you're gonna do, or if there's maybe a couple of rounds that you're gonna do, what do those entail so that you know even if it fails, your partner knows that you've done everything you can with within the context of that project.

Mara Sprouse 16:10

Yeah. And I think so important too is working with a CRO that can help explain potentially like why it didn't work and help get you pointed in a different direction, you know, based on the data that you do have, what is the next viable thing? And and I think, you know, having that drug hunter expertise of like, hey, I've I've seen a thing or two, right? And I you've seen, I'm sure, many programs fail and you pivot. And um, yeah, so having that sort of thought partner to help you understand where you can go next with the data you have.

Eric Furfine 16:43

Yeah, and a lot of times you can discuss that up front, actually. Um, you can even say, look, here's where I would start. If you're really all in on this target and you just want to make sure you go as fast as you can and cover as much ground as you can, we can take multiple approaches all at one time. And there are a lot of things that that a lot of approaches you could take. That, of course, is faster, higher probability expense, but the most expensive. Um, on the other hand, all those things are possible, but you can do them more linearly. You can say, well, here's our best bet of what you would do in the early stage to get this thing started. If that doesn't work, here's probably what we would do next. Yeah. You know, and and then here's what we might do after that. And so you can play it by ear as you're going. It's a little more cost effective. It's going to take a little longer if you don't work out in in each step of the way. But it's good idea to have that plan. If you're not going to throw the kitchen sink at it from minute one, you want to have the plan on what you want to do so that if events unfold not in your favor in the first rounds or two, um, you know what you're going to do next. And you've thought about it and you know why. And you see whether the data that you got from the first one, to your point, suggests that actually these second ideas that you had or third ideas that you had are actually a good idea now to try.

Mara Sprouse 18:09

Yeah. And I think so. You brought up a really good um, you know, red flag, if you will, of, you know, there's a lot of CROs that offer many different platforms for discovery. We often do suggest doing things in parallel. It, you know, increases your chance of more shots on goal. But really digging into the CRO that you're thinking about choosing, right? Can they tell you the pros and cons of their different platforms? That's right, right? Like that is maybe one of the easiest questions you can ask because they should be able to, you know, take a look at your target and say, this is what we suggest, and here's why. Now, here's a potential downside of that. And here's a different approach that we have, and then, you know, pro and cons of that as well. But being able to, you know, really speak to their technology and which one fits for you in, you know, in their expertise.

Eric Furfine 18:56

Yeah.

Series Preview And Closing Thanks

Eric Furfine 18:57

Well, I think we've covered the vast majority of uh how to figure out uh a good CRO to work with you to discover an antibody. Hopefully, this has been informative to the folks who watch this podcast. Um, this is gonna be series, and we're gonna talk about some other things uh over the course of time. Uh and thank you for listening in and thank you, Mara, for joining me and in this conversation.

Mara Sprouse 19:21

Yeah, thanks for including me. I, you know, I love to have these conversations. I get to have them all the time when we're at conferences to talk to your customers. And um, yeah, I'm excited to see where the podcast goes. I think the next one is gonna be about uh, you know, transgenic mice and other antibody discovery platforms. So yeah, stay tuned.

Eric Furfine 19:38

Sounds good.