Cardiff-based Antiverse, a biotechnology company developing a computational antibody drug discovery platform, announced on Wednesday that it has raised £2.5M (approximately €2.82M) in a fresh round of funding.
The funding came from InnoSpark, AngelHub, Kadmos Capital, and Tomorrow Scale, and existing investors Tensor Ventures, Deep Science Ventures, Ed Parkinson, and Development Bank of Wales.
Antiverse also announced the successful discovery of functional antibody clusters directed against two G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), both of which exhibit adaptable binding patterns and nanomolar affinity.
GPCRs are essential membrane proteins that cells use to translate external signals into intracellular actions.
Peter Pack, antibody engineer and NED at Antiverse, says, “Antiverse’s AI-powered methods to generate nanomolar binders against “difficult” antigens such as GPCRs in silico is a gamechanger in the antibody discovery industry, the most important innovation since the invention of phage display. We will see large savings in cost and time in the discovery and development of antibodies.”
What does Antiverse offer?
Founded in 2017 by Murat Tunaboylu and Ben Holland, Antiverse says it is building a world-first computational antibody drug discovery platform. It combines machine learning and phage display techniques to model antibody-antigen interactions.
The current version of the platform uses next-generation sequencing and Artificial Intelligence to curate diverse antibody candidates for any given target.
The technology is being developed to enable the discovery of biologics for difficult-to-drug targets associated with cancer, heart, and lung diseases.
The discovery of functional antibody clusters
Antiverse’s computational antibody drug discovery platform was used to identify the antibodies using machine learning to simulate antibody-antigen interactions and create new antibodies.
Eight antibodies were found to be human GPCR binders after Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorting (FACS) was used to find a varied collection of binders to two structurally different GPCRs. Seven of these binders were confirmed as antagonists, blocking GPCR activity.
A family of cell membrane receptors, known as GPCRs, are essential for numerous physiological functions. They are desirable candidates for drug discovery efforts due to their connection to numerous pathologies and illnesses, and the fact that roughly half of all prescription medications target the GPCR family.
Diabetes, coronary and mental conditions are diseases associated with GPCRs. Despite these links, very few biologic treatments for GPCRs have been created because it is difficult to produce antibodies against them.
Since there are only two FDA-approved antibody therapeutics for this family of receptors and over 400 GPCRs have been linked to over 30 diseases, these assets have a lot of potential for therapeutic use.
Capital utilisation
Antiverse says it will use the money to support its in-house development of the antibodies exhibiting the highest affinity blocking function, making them the “ideal” starting points for therapeutic assets.
Tunaboylu says, “This is the most comprehensive validation of our platform thus far. While identifying antibodies to GPCRs has traditionally been a complex and time-intensive process requiring expensive specialist technology and training, we have demonstrated that Antiverse’s drug discovery platform can achieve this in a fraction of the time and cost.”
“GPCRs are commercially interesting targets associated with various indications, and these antibodies offer a path to first in vivo results and can potentially be our first assets. I would like to thank our investors, this funding will enable us to continue to develop these assets in-house with our academic collaborators,” adds Tunaboylu.
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