Paris, France – On September 11, 2020, Plantibodies was officially incorporated, marking the beginning of a bold venture to transform how biologic drugs are produced.
Founded by Pierre Bauër and Bilal Mazhar, the company was born out of a shared conviction: that plants could become the next frontier for biomanufacturing — enabling faster, safer, and more accessible treatments for patients worldwide.
In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the fragility of global pharmaceutical supply chains became strikingly clear. Disruptions in access to vaccines, diagnostics, and biologics exposed deep structural weaknesses — and emphasized the need for scalable, decentralized, and sovereign manufacturing solutions. Plantibodies was created in this context, with the vision of leveraging plants as green factories.
Bilal Mazhar, Plantibodies’ Chief Scientific Officer and co-founder, had conducted research in leading institutions including the University of California, the Pasteur Institute, and the Collège de France. His expertise in plant biology and molecular biotechnology laid the scientific foundations for the project.
Pierre Bauër, with a PhD in biophysics and an MBA, brought complementary experience from the healthtech ecosystem, including work at early-stage startups and leading academic centers such as Institut Curie and the CNRS. Together, they formed a founding team combining deep science and translational strategy.
“Our ambition is to make biologics more democratic — by making them easier to produce, cheaper to deliver, and safer to administer,” says Pierre.
Plantibodies’ core platform harnesses the power of plant cells to produce complex biologic drugs such as monoclonal antibodies (mAbs), enzymes, or peptides, to target diseases like inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), cancers, and infections.