Abcore can humanize single domain antibodies for clinical applications. Humanization of VHH is fairly straightforward and something we do often for our partner pharma companies. If a single domain antibody is headed for the clinic, this is an integral step.
Abcore will always strive to achieve full humanization of a VHH antibody, but we will make a mixture of sequences to test. Sometimes full humanization is possible, but other times modification of too many of the amino acids will result in instability of the protein, resulting in stability problems or solubility problems.
Abcore will generate multiple sequences, from the native VHH sequence to fully humanized, and then test the proteins for stability and also make sure that it maintains binding to the target of interest. Once the single domain antibody is humanized, it can then undergo further modifications for clinical applications.