Biologics Brief: E6: Outsourcing Antibody Discovery in Europe: What Biotechs Should Ask Before Choosing a CRO

Published: October 12, 2026 | Category: Insights, Biologics Discovery

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Choosing a CRO in Europe for antibody discovery can sound simple at first. A CRO discovers antibodies. Everyone appears to be in the right meeting. Then the questions start: what is the target biology, what is the budget, what is the timeline, and what does success actually mean? That is where useful conversations begin.

In Episode 6 of The Biologics Brief, Mosaic’s Chief Strategy Officer Tracey Mullen sits down with Thijs de Gunst, Senior Director of Business Development for Europe, to talk about how European biotechs approach antibody discovery outsourcing. They cover what a company should bring to a first conversation, how funding shapes scope, what to clarify about regulation, and where the partnership market is heading.

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Start With the Company Behind the Request

Before platforms come up, Thijs wants to understand where the company is in its development and what it needs to accomplish next. A company testing a biological hypothesis needs something different from one trying to identify a therapeutic lead. He also asks about the team. Does the company have an antibody discovery group in-house? Does it work through academic collaborators? Does it need a specific capability, or help coordinating the program and translating it toward the clinic?

The same request, “we need a discovery partner,” can describe very different projects. If that distinction gets missed early, a CRO can write a perfectly clear proposal for entirely the wrong project.

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Fragmentation: A Strong Network Is Not a Coordinated Program.

Europe has strong academic science, established biotech clusters, and specialist discovery providers. Tracey points out that the European Commission’s life science strategy names fragmented funding and innovation systems as a barrier to turning that science into companies that grow.

For a company choosing a discovery partner, fragmentation shows up in practical ways. Founding science may come from a university, early funding from a local government or family offices, and parts of the experimental work from specialist labs. Each relationship is valuable. The challenge is a coherent plan across all of them. Someone has to own the next scientific decision, know which materials are available, and manage what moves from one organization to another.

For academic spinouts, there is a second shift. A publication can make a persuasive case for the biology. The company then has to show it can produce a molecule with the properties needed to act on that biology. Thijs recommends starting the first outsourcing conversation with the existing evidence and discussing what carries over. An academic assay or reagent may be exactly what the company needs, or it may need adaptation before it can support a larger screen. The provider should respect the work already done. It is a collaboration with the founding scientists, not a reset of the program.

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Company Stage Explains More Than Geography

Tracey cautions against turning regional differences into claims that European companies are more cautious or American companies are faster. A funded company with an experienced discovery team behaves very differently from a new spinout with six months of runway, wherever it is based.

The differences worth investigating are access to funding, the composition of the team, how much work the existing network already supports, and the intended next step, whether that is another financing, a licensing opportunity, or building a long-term internal pipeline. Those factors decide whether a company wants one coordinated partner or several specialists, and how much it can commit up front.

On whether a European biotech should consider a US partner when it has credible options closer to home, Thijs wants a clear reason: target experience, capability, or an approach that fits the program. Then he asks practical questions. Can the client speak directly with scientists? Can materials be transferred? Who helps resolve issues? Is the data safe? Tracey adds that a US address is neither a scientific advantage nor a limitation. What counts is whether the expertise is worth accessing and whether the operating model delivers direct access to the people doing the work.

Questions to Bring to Your First CRO Conversation

First-time buyers usually start with practical questions: can you work on this type of target, how long will it take, and what will it cost. Cost is a fair question. It becomes much more useful once the endpoint is agreed. A panel of screening hits, paired sequences, and functionally confirmed recombinant antibodies are three different deliverables, and calling all of them antibody discovery makes proposals hard to compare. A low price can reflect a narrower scope, different starting assumptions, or an efficient approach. You need to know which.

Questions worth asking:

• What will we receive, and what will it have demonstrated?
• Which steps are optional, and which are necessary to reach our objective?
• Which part of our program do you think is most uncertain, and how would you address it?
• What would cause you to change the proposed approach as we learn?
• Who on your team leads the scientific work, and can we speak with them directly?
• What data will be shared during the project, and what is delivered at the end?
• Who owns the project results and antibody sequences, and are there any platform limitations?
• Will any work be subcontracted, and who remains accountable?

On control, Thijs says the important step is agreeing up front how the company will participate. Some teams want regular scientific discussion and a voice in candidate selection. Others hand off day-to-day work and escalate big decisions. Either can work if expectations and approval rights are clear. Outsourcing experiments does not remove the need for scientific ownership, and a good CRO should make that person more effective.

For the first meeting, bring the target rationale, the goal, existing data and materials, the intended antibody profile, and the next milestone. A realistic budget range and timeline help, and so does openness about uncertainties. If an assay has not been established or materials still need to be generated, that affects the timeline, and it is better to know up front. You do not need a finished statement of work.

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Match the Scope to the Funding

European biotechs often combine private capital, national support, European funding, and collaboration funding. Tracey notes there is no single European grant rule book. Programs and agreements differ, and the scope has to work two ways: scientifically, so it answers a meaningful question, and financially, so the company can execute it.

Thijs likes to define a first phase with a useful endpoint and show how later work builds on it, such as a feasibility study followed by a focused confirmation step, or characterization of an existing panel. The stopping point should leave the company with evidence it can use and a clear picture of what restarting would require.

Funding milestones and scientific milestones can look alike in a spreadsheet, but they are not the same. “Generate antibodies against this target” might satisfy an initial work package. If the next financing depends on functional proof of concept, sequences alone will not get the company there. Tracey suggests agreeing on the evidence that supports the next investment decision and working backwards into the budget. When the full plan is unaffordable, the answer is to narrow the first phase or address different uncertainties first. Cutting essential confirmation work just to make the numbers fit usually means paying for the missing experiment later.

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Regulation: Clarify, Don’t Assume

Thijs advises companies to be clear about where they intend to develop the molecule and what the proposed studies are meant to support. A European company may have a global development strategy, and the discovery partner should know about it. Appropriate regulatory expertise should join as the plan develops.

Tracey draws a line between exploratory work and studies meant to support formal development decisions or submissions. Design, documentation, and quality expectations can differ between the two. Being in Europe does not make a program exclusively European, and doing discovery in the United States does not by itself make the data suitable for a particular submission. For European development, she notes that the EMA offers scientific advice and support for smaller companies, and the point is to raise questions early enough to shape the plan. She also cautions against turning an early discovery project into a miniature regulatory filing, which can consume a great deal of money without answering the question the company currently faces.

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Where Requests and Needs Diverge

Both speakers look first at the definition of success. A request may name a target and a number of antibodies without explaining the intended activity or the evidence needed to progress.

Tracey’s example: a biotech wants an antibody that inhibits a cell surface receptor, and it needs the data for its next financing round. If the scope stops at binding to a purified target, the CRO can deliver exactly what was contracted and still leave the central question unanswered. Thijs says the desired function should shape the plan. How will inhibition be measured? Is there an appropriate assay? Which controls exist? How will binding be confirmed in a relevant context? Teams should reserve enough budget to confirm that selected antibodies do something relevant after expression. If the functional assay itself is uncertain, early feasibility work helps. Otherwise a disappointing result is hard to interpret: did the antibodies lack activity, or did the assay fail to measure it?

Other places to look:

• Starting materials and assays. A client-supplied reagent might be ready to use, still under development, or a promising email thread. A real dependency should show up in the timeline.
• Comparing proposals. One may include reagent development and assay work while another assumes both exist. One may stop at sequences while another includes recombinant confirmation and characterization. Compare them to the same endpoints.
• Handoffs. Specialist providers can be the right choice, but splitting work creates interfaces. Will the next lab accept the material format? Who uses the functional data to update candidate ranking? A program can outsource many experiments and still have no owner.
• Committing too early. Early data on expression, aggregation, and nonspecific binding can change which candidate deserves investment. That does not make every issue disqualifying. It means understanding the trade-offs while options remain, with characterization proportionate to the stage.

Tracey adds that at Mosaic, discovery, assay, and protein characterization teams work closely together, so a finding in one group can change candidate selection quickly.

Where the Partnership Market Is Heading

Thijs expects flexibility to stay important. A biotech may need substantial support at first, then bring some activities in-house as it grows, and providers that adapt without losing continuity will be valuable. Tracey expects the quality of the evidence package to matter more in judging these relationships. More output does not automatically make a company ready for financing or partnership. Results need to travel: well-documented experiments and candidate selection materials the next team can use.

On new technology, the test is whether it earns its place. Does it address a difficult target, improve a relevant screening step, or remove a bottleneck? If the bottleneck is functional interpretation, generating more candidates may only create a bigger bottleneck. For companies working with staged funding, the practical question is whether a capability improves the evidence they can obtain within this phase or creates work they have not funded yet.

Advice for a First Discovery Partnership

Thijs: be very clear about the next milestone you need to reach, and ask the provider to explain how its plan gets you there. You do not need every technical answer, but you should understand the next step.

Tracey: choose a team you can think with and collaborate with. You will get a proposal from almost anyone. The more useful question is who helps you understand your program better, and who keeps doing that when the data becomes difficult or inconvenient.

If you are preparing to outsource a program, start with the evidence you need next. Then ask whether the scientific approach, the budget, and the working relationships are built to get you there. To talk through your own antibody discovery program, reach out to the Mosaic team.

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