Welsh startup Antiverse raises $2m for antibody discovery toolkit
Summary
The Cardiff, Wales startup is combining machine learning and phage display techniques to model antibody-antigen binding and says it can cut the time it takes to develop a drug candidate. It’s one of the few AI drug discovery companies operating in the antibody category, as most are focused on small molecules. Antiverse – which was co-founded in 2017 by engineers Murat Tunaboylu and Ben Holland – says it will use the cash injection to build a new laboratory in Cardiff and expand its technical team through recruitment of specialist machine learning engineers, laboratory scientists and structural biologists. The technology will “enable the development of drugs for ‘difficult’ targets associated with cancer, heart, and lung diseases.” Holland told a virtual conference on AI in February that the company distils scientific knowledge about antibodies along with the results of hundreds of thousands of experiments to develop models that can predict how antibodies bind to their antigen targets, and spot molecules that may be missed with current approaches. “Our investors recognise the potential of our AI-powered antibody drug discovery platform to provide a breakthrough in the industry,” said Tunaboylu, who is chief executive of the company.