Money for AI-powered drug discovery

Antiverse Ltd has reported the discovery of functional antibody clusters targeting two G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), both of which are displaying versatile binding profiles and nanomolar affinity. At the same time, the company announced a financing round of €2.8m (£2.5m) from new investors InnoSpark, AngelHub, Kadmos Capital and Tomorrow Scale, as well as existing investors, Tensor Ventures, Deep Science Ventures, Ed Parkinson, and Development Bank of Wales (DBW).

GPCRs are the largest and most diverse group of membrane receptors in eukaryotes. They mediate our hormones, our sense of vision, smell taste and pain and are as neurotransmitters involved in many cell recognition processes. In other words, GPCR signalling is the basis of most physiological processes, which in turn makes them particularly interesting to the pharma industry. The Welsh start-up Antiverse Ltd. founded in 2017 with pre-seed investment from Deep Science Ventures, has been developing a computational antibody drug discovery platform targeting such GPC Receptors.

The Antiverse platform resides at the confluence of structural biology, machine learning, and medicine to accelerate and reduce the expense of discoveries. The platform is modelling antibody-antigen interactions using machine learning and phage display methods. This is in stark contrast to the traditional, complex, expensive and time intensive processes by which the identification of antibodies to GDCRs have been studied to date. “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”, explained Peter Pack, antibody engineer and NED at Antiverse. With only few FDA-approved antibody therapeutics in the game against over 30 illnesses that have been associated with GPCRs, the stakes are high, but the company hopes to commercialize their product after further development.