Porton&Nona: Strategic Partnership for Complex Antibody Therapy

On December 22, 2025 – Nona Biosciences (short for Nona), a global leader in fully human antibody technology, and Porton, a global leading CDMO, officially announced a strategic partnership. The core management teams from both parties were in attendance at the strategic cooperation ceremony. Respective attendees included: Oliver Ju, Chairman and CEO; Andrew Chen, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Helen Pi, Vice President and Board Secretary; Sophia Meng, Vice President; Dr. Huifang Dong, Head of the Large Molecule Platform; and Nan Xia, Executive Director of New Modality Business Development. From Nona, participants included Dr. Di Hong, Chief Executive Officer; Dr. Yun He, Chief Technology Officer; Ganliang Zhang, Head of CMC; Guian Fan, Head of China Business Development; Jun Rong, Associate Director of Toxicology and Safety; and Ye Dong, Associate Director of Facility Management.

The partnership will focus on the full-lifecycle R&D and production of innovative complex antibody therapies, including bispecific and multi-specific antibodies. Through precise synergy between "innovative technology platforms and industrialization implementation capabilities", the two parties aim to address key industry challenges—such as cumbersome process developments, stringent regulatory requirements, cost pressures, and prolonged translation cycles for novel antibody drugs. This collaboration will accelerate the progression of innovative therapies from lab to clinical trials and commercialization, delivering more accessible breakthrough treatments to patients worldwide.

China’s innovative pharmaceutical enterprises are rapidly emerging as global innovation hubs, with R&D strength in innovative therapeutics ranking among the world’s elite. The demand for the industrialization of complex antibodies is surging, creating an urgent need to overcome core bottlenecks such as process stability, purification analysis, regulatory compliance, cost optimization, and supply chain management. Strong alliances that combine "R&D innovation with industrialization execution" have become the critical pathway to unlocking these challenges.

As a global innovative biotechnology company, Nona is dedicated to providing partners with integrated "Idea to IND (I to I®)" solutions for biotherapeutics, spanning discovery to preclinical development. Leveraging its proprietary Harbour Mice® fully human antibody technology platform, Nona has built a global partner ecosystem, collaborating with over 110 leading organizations—including AstraZeneca and Pfizer—on more than 300 projects. Of these, over 19 molecules have entered clinical development, with its technology and R&D capabilities earning recognition from top global pharmaceutical companies. As Nona expands into late-stage clinical and commercial phases, it requires a CDMO partner with global regulatory qualifications, expertise in complex processes, and reliable delivery capabilities.

Porton, a leading global trusted  and innovative CDMO, offers end-to-end services across small molecules, peptides and oligonucleotides, biologics and Antibody - Drug Conjugates (ADCs) , and ATMPs. With a global footprint covering China, the U.S., and Europe, including 18 R&D centers and manufacturing facilities, Porton is an ideal strategic fit for Nona. To date, Porton has successfully delivered dozens of complex biopharmaceutical projects, including bispecific/multi-specific antibodies, asymmetric antibodies, and various conjugated drugs. Its GMP manufacturing facility for proteins and conjugated drugs in Shanghai has passed EU QP audits and inspections by over 50 clients. Porton’s extensive experience in global regulatory submissions, CMC development, and production will seamlessly complement Nona’s R&D and innovation strengths. As collaboration in complex antibodies deepens, the two parties are expected to explore strategic partnerships in additional innovative therapeutic areas, such as conjugated drugs.

In this partnership, Porton and Nona will establish a joint development and management team that leverages complementary strengths to drive integrated development and end-to-end lifecycle management of Nona’s projects, with deep alignment across key functions such as project management and quality systems. The collaboration will focus on the full-lifecycle of complex antibody projects (including bispecific, multispecific, and asymmetric antibodies) and set three core objectives:

Efficient R&D Conversion:  Leveraging Nona’s industry-leading fully human antibody platform to rapidly generate high-affinity, low-immunogenicity candidate antibodies—laying a solid foundation for subsequent CMC development. Combined with Porton’s mature CMC expertise and large-scale production capabilities, the two parties will jointly advance process development and optimization, shortening the translation cycle from preclinical to Phase I/II clinical trials.

Global Regulatory Compliance Assurance: Supported by a quality system certified via EU QP audits, ensuring projects meet global regulatory submission requirements in China, the U.S., and Europe to facilitate global product expansion.

Stable Commercial Supply: Deliver customized solutions tailored to Nona’s unique needs to safeguard clinical supply, support product launch, and sustain commercial competitiveness across the entire project lifecycle, focusing on scale-up, cost, quality, and compliance.

Oliver Ju

Chairman and CEO of Porton

“Porton has been deeply rooted in the CDMO industry for 20 years, and has built a one-stop, comprehensive CMC technology platform and global compliance system, with extensive experience collaborating with global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. This partnership with Nona Biosciences represents a seamless connection and close synergy from innovative R&D to industrialization. We will leverage our strengths in complex drug process development, manufacturing, and global regulatory submissions to fully support project advancement, accelerate the industrialization of complex antibodies and conjugated therapies, and jointly drive global biopharmaceutical innovation.”

Di Hong, Ph.D.

Chief Executive Officer of Nona Biosciences

“As a global biotechnology company centered on fully human antibody technology, Nona Biosciences is committed to empowering global innovation through foundational technology platforms and integrated R&D solutions. This strategic partnership with Porton will further strengthen our comprehensive capabilities across the full lifecycle of complex antibody drugs. By leveraging Porton’s profound expertise in CMC development, global regulatory compliance, and commercial production, Nona can more efficiently translate leading antibody discovery technologies into globally competitive clinical candidates and commercial products—forming a complete value chain closed loop from ‘foundational innovation’ to ‘global delivery’. This will enable us to provide more certain and sustainable value to our clients and partners.”

This collaboration marks not only the first in-depth collaboration between the two parties in the complex antibody field but also signifies that Porton and Nona will gradually establish a synergistic, efficient long-term cooperation mechanism. By combining Nona’s R&D strengths in novel modalities with Porton’s core capabilities in protein and conjugated drug platforms, the two parties will jointly create a benchmark model of “Chinese Innovation + Global Manufacturing”. This partnership will provide the industry with a reliable end-to-end collaboration pathway from R&D to production, supporting the global expansion of Chinese innovative therapies.

About Porton

Porton Pharma Solutions, a global company with over 4,200 employees and R&D and GMP-compliant manufacturing facilities across the US, EU, and China. It provides customer-centric, innovative, and reliable CDMO solutions for Small Molecules, Tides, Biologics and Conjugates (such as ADCs, AOCs, PDCs, RDCs, etc.), as well as Advanced Therapy Medicinal Products, from pre-clinical to commercial stages.

About the Porton Biologics and Conjugates CDMO Platform Operating R&D centers and GMP manufacturing sites in Shanghai, China, and New Jersey, USA, the platform delivers integrated, one-stop CMC services from preclinical through commercial stages. Capabilities include payload–linker preparation; conjugate developability assessment; cell line construction; upstream and downstream process development; conjugation process development; formulation development; analytical method development; GMP manufacturing of drug substance (DS) and drug product (DP) for biologics and conjugates; stability studies; clinical trial material production; and CMC documentation support for regulatory filings—Enabling the Public’s Early Access to Good Medicines

About Nona Biosciences

Nona Biosciences is a global biotechnology company committed to cutting-edge technology innovations and providing integrated solutions from I to I® (Idea to IND), ranging from target validation and antibody discovery through preclinical research. Nona's integrated antibody and antibody-related discovery services cover a broad range of modalities, from antigen preparation, animal immunization, single B cell screening, to antibody lead generation and engineering, developability assessment and pharmacological evaluation, leveraging advantages of Harbour Mice® platforms and the experienced therapeutic antibody discovery teams.

Harbour Mice® generates fully human monoclonal antibodies in classical two light and two heavy chain (H2L2) format, and heavy chain-only (HCAb) format. The HCAb Harbour Mice® is the world's first fully human HCAb transgenic mouse with clinical validation. This unique platform offers exceptional versatility for diverse applications using fully human VH single-domain antibodies as a plug-and-play system, including bispecific antibodies, multi-specific antibodies, CAR-T therapies, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), mRNA-based therapeutics, and more.

By integrating Harbour Mice®, single-B cell screening technology, NonaCarFxTM (a direct CAR-function-based screening platform), Hu-mAtrIxTM (an AI-driven drug discovery platform), Modalities-on-DemandTM (a next-generation modalities solution), and end-to-end preclinical drug development services, Nona Biosciences is dedicated to driving the global invention of transformative next-generation drugs.