Araris Biotech AG kicks-off with CHF2.5m seed financing

The company said it will use the proceeds to develop a pipeline of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). However, its platform can be also used to produce antibody-based diagnostics.

Araris Biotech, which spun-off from Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and ETH Zurich in January, wants to take profit of a novel linker technology for ADCs, which allows for the enzymatic attachment of any payload to ‘off the shelf’ antibodies without the need of costly antibody engineering. What's more, the antibody to drug ratio in contrast to other technologies is stochiometric and thus delivers a defined monomeric product.

Araris bioconjugation platform, which was invented by co-founder and CEO Phillip Spycher at PSI, uses microbial transglutaminase (MTG) for the site-specific functionalisation of native antibodies, scFV, Fab-fragments etc. under physiological conditions. Instead of removing the enzymes from a mixture, Spycher showed that the process works with immobised MTG preventing costly downstream purification processes and adding speed to ADC synthesis.

Spycher, who co-founded Araris Biotech with Isabella Attinger-Toller, and Dr. Dragan Grabulovski, commented: “We are very pleased to announce that three renowned Swiss investors with a very strong track record have invested in Araris.” Dr. Dragan Grabulovski, co-founder and chairman of the board, added: “The funding will allow Araris to progress quickly towards generating key proof of principle data.”