TechBio News: Un-locking Data to Transform Biology (I)
TechBio News: Un-locking Data to Transform Biology (I)
Trends on TechBio ⛽: Illumina Ventures, Iktos, Altris AI, Basecamp Research, Blackbird VC, Corrdyn and Tierra Biosciences
This week’s update:
TechBio News: Un-locking Data to Transform Biology (I)
Trends on TechBio ⛽: Illumina Ventures, Iktos, Altris AI, Basecamp Research, Blackbird VC, Corrdyn and Tierra Biosciences
TechBio News: Un-locking Data to Transform Biology (II)
Trends on TechBio ⛽: BioPhy, Nucleai, Flagship Pioneering, Codon Capital, Profluent and Backed VC
🚨 NEWS 🚨
Exciting news at Lantern Pharma Inc. (Nasdaq: LTRN)!
This week they announced that they've been granted three additional FDA Rare Pediatric Disease Designations for thier drug candidate LP-184 in three ultra-rare children's cancers; malignant rhabdoid tumors (MRT), rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), and hepatoblastoma (Lantern Pharma Announces Three U.S. FDA Rare Pediatric Disease Designations Granted to LP-184 in Multiple Ultra Rare Children’s Cancers).
Exciting news at Insilico Medicine!
Last week Insilico Medicine Reported Positive Phase IIa Results for ISM001-055, a Novel First-in-Class Drug Treatment for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) Designed Using Generative AI (Insilico Medicine Reports Positive Phase IIa Results for ISM001-055, a Novel First-in-Class Drug Treatment for Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) Designed Using Generative AI).
Illumina Ventures
Illumina Ventures is an independently managed firm focused on early-stage companies that are pioneering new applications of genomics enabling precision medicine, and with a strategic relationship with Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN). Since 2016, Illumina Ventures has invested in over 30 start-ups in the US and Europe, making it one of the leading investors in life science tools, clinical diagnostics and genomics-enabled therapeutic platforms. While Illumina is an anchor limited partner in the fund, the majority of the $560M raised by the independently managed firm comes from other limited partners. Illumina Ventures is now looking to raise $300M for its third fund, according to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
On June 20, 2023, Illumina Ventures launched Illumina® Ventures Labs that will operate and provide access to fully equipped genomics labs in the US and the UK, providing mentorship and seed financing to attract a broad range of genomics related start-ups. Illumina will provide the start-ups with technical guidance from its subject matter experts and will provide Illumina Ventures Labs access to its next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms, in lieu of operating its Accelerator program. On January 12, 2024, Illumina Ventures launched a refreshed genomics startup accelerator program. The program is currently taking applications for early-stage genomics startups, from company formation through series A financing.
Illumina Ventures invests into:
🛸 Syntax Bio is a preclinical-stage biotech company overcoming the longstanding challenges in stem cell-derived therapies by directly controlling and accelerating cell differentiation. Their Cellgorithm technology provides control over the complex developmental biology needed to manufacture stem cell-derived cell therapies. Cellgorithm mimics the human developmental processes at the epigenetic level, using a modified CRISPR system to regulate endogenous genes in an automatic and temporally controlled manner.
Syntax Bio was launched on September 17, 2024 with backing from Astellas Venture Management LLC and Illumina Ventures. Other investors include DCVCBio, Civilization Ventures, EGB Capital, and Portal Innovations.
🚀 Tagomics is harnessing the power of multi-omics to accelerate disease understanding and diagnosis. Tagomics' proprietary multi-omic platform unlocks disease-associated biomarkers from a range of biological sources including genetic, epigenetic and fragmentomic features. In combination with their advanced bioinformatic and ML approaches their platform provides unique biological insights and offers a step change in genomics-based disease profiling and diagnosis
On February 21, 2024, Tagomics raised £6.7M to improve disease diagnosis. The investment was led by Calculus Capital, with participation from Illumina Ventures, IQ Capital, Agilent Ventures, Mercia Ventures and the MEIF Proof of Concept & Early Stage Fund, which is managed by Mercia Ventures and is part of the Midlands Engine Investment Fund (MEIF), Meltwind and OMX Ventures.
🚁 Ribometrix is leveraging proprietary RNA structure determination, state-of-the-art RNA tools and technologies, and complementary AI/ML capabilities to directly target and modulate RNA biology. Ribometrix has risen to the challenge of addressing “undruggable” proteins by preventing the translation of their mRNAs, leading to a reduction of the target disease-causing protein. Their platform modulates RNA biology for therapeutic effect via independent yet related strategies to develop small molecule therapeutics: direct targeting of complex RNA structures, targeting of RNA/RNA-binding protein interactions and development of RNA degraders. Among their partners you can find Genentech and Vertex.
On April 07, 2024, Ribometrix shared the First c-MYC Data Validating RNA-Targeting Platform and Demonstrated Synergistic Potential of eIF4E Program at AACR 2024 for
Identifying a small molecules targeting c-MYC (a validated but historically undruggable cancer driver),
Demonstrating direct binding of small molecules to c-MYC RNA and reduction of associated protein levels (longtime goal of RNA therapeutic development) and
Demonstrating in vivo tumor regression in combination with in vitro data supported efficacy in drug-resistant tumors with the RNA-binding protein inhibitor program targeting eIF4E.
On September 16, 2024, Ribometrix presented the latest in vitro and in vivo data from its eIF4E program regarding a small molecule eIF4E inhibitor, RBX-6610, as a potential treatment for KRASG12C mutant non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients, that acquire resistance with the two already approved therapies for KRASG12C mutant NSCLC. RBX-6610 is creating a significant opportunity for a therapy that re-sensitizes tumors to KRAS inhibition. Ribometrix’s data supports RBX-6610’s ability to deliver this mechanism in combination with the approved therapies.
✈️ Sherlock Biosciences is trying to change how people access diagnostics. The company is developing a suite of sophisticated home tests that provides instant and accurate results by leveraging three advanced technologies: CRISPR, synthetic biology and AI.
On May 31, 2024, Sherlock Biosciences enrolled its first patient in the PROMISE trial which evaluates the company’s rapid over-the-counter (OTC) test for sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
🛩️ Pattern Bioscience is a healthtech company that focuses on diagnostics related to antibiotic resistance. They are offering a proprietary single-cell analysis technology that shortens the test time by “zooming in” and measuring the live response of each pathogenic cell directly, bypassing the need for time-consuming culture steps. The advances of AI and DL have enabled them to recast assay development as a software problem. In particular, DL will observe how living cells actually respond, all at a scale never before possible, while single-cell analysis will produce millions of measurements per run. Then phenotypic pattern recognition will cover every resistance mechanism: known, unknown, existing, emerging, simple, complex, genetic, or epigenetic.
On April 27, 2023, Pattern Bioscience announced the completion of a $28.7M Series C financing. The funding round was led by Illumina Ventures and Omnimed Capital and includes participation from the Antimicrobial Resistance Action Fund and Daleshaw Ltd. This new round brings the company’s total funding raised to date to $68M.
🛸 Iambic Therapeutics (formerly known as Entos) combines physics and AI to create a differentiated drug discovery platform that achieves a step-change in the speed and success rate for delivering best-in-class and first-in-class development candidates with NeuralPlexer: a protein-ligand structure prediction 3D physics-based equivariant generative diffusion tool, OrbNet: an AI-accelerated quantum chemistry Graph neural network architecture based on quantum features, ProPANE: a multi-endpoint property prediction tool, and Magnet: a generative molecular design tool. The development of Iambic’s suite of AI-driven drug discovery platforms, including NeuralPLexer and ProPANE, was facilitated in part through a multi-year research collaboration with NVIDIA (NASDAQ: NVDA) (Iambic and NVIDIA: Using AI to chart a faster course for drug discovery).
Iambic has discovered so far two candidates to advance into the clinic:
IAM-H1, a highly potent and irreversible tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) that selectively targets HER2 and HER2 mutants, while sparing EGFR.
On March 27, 2024, Iambic Therapeutics Announced the First Patient Dosed in Phase 1 Clinical Study of IAM1363, a Highly Selective HER2 Inhibitor for the Treatment of Solid Tumors.
On March 18, 2024, Iambic said that its Rapid Path to the Clinic Enabled by Its AI-Driven Drug Discovery Platform, was Built in Collaboration with NVIDIA.
IAM-C1, a potential first-in-class selective dual cell-cycle kinase CDK2/4 inhibitor to address unmet needs in terms of therapeutic window and treatment resistance in cell-cycle-driven cancers.
On June 18, 2024, Iambic closed an oversubscribed $50M extension to its Series B financing, which was led by new investors Mubadala Capital and Exor Ventures, with participation from Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), and existing investors Abingworth, Illumina Ventures, Nexus Venture Partners, Coatue, and Tao Capital Partners. The extension adds to an oversubscribed $100M Series B that closed in October and was co-led by Ascenta Capital and Abingworth and joined by NVIDIA and others.
Iktos
Iktos (Paris, Ile-de-France, France, 2016) is specialized in the development of AI solutions applied to chemical research, more specifically medicinal chemistry and new drug design. Iktos released Makya, its generative AI-driven ligand and structure-based de novo design software for chemical space exploration and multi-parametric optimization (MPO) of lead compounds, available either as a SaaS platform or for implementation on customer premises or in the customer’s Virtual Private Cloud (VPC). Makya’s user-friendly interface enables it to be used by medicinal or computational chemists and can also be operated as a Python package through a Jupyter notebook interface. Iktos also released Spaya, an AI-based retrosynthesis platform and Spaya API, a high throughput synthetic accessibility scoring tool for virtual molecule libraries
Iktos has collaborations with: Merck KGaA, Darmstadt (ETR: MRK) (2020), Kadmon (a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company based in USA, May 2021), UCB (EBR: UCB) (a global biopharma company focusing on neurology and immunology, May 2021), Astrogen (a clinical and research-oriented biotech company in S.Korea focused in developing innovative new drugs for neurological diseases, January 2022), Ono Pharmaceuticals Co from Japan, with a focus on oncology, immunology and neurology research (March 2022), Teijin Pharma based in Japan (April 2022), Sygnature Discovery (May 2022), Zealand Pharma A/S (OTCMKTS: ZLDPF) (a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of peptide-based medicines, June 2022), Galapagos (NASDAQ: GLPG) (formerly known as Galapagos Genomics is leading Belgian global biopharmaceutical company, June 2022), Kissei Pharmaceutical Co (TYO: 4547) (a Japanese pharmaceutical company specialized in the field of urology, kidney-dialysis and unmet medical needs, July 2023), Curreio (a Japanese company specializing in structural analysis of biomolecules using cryo-electron microscopy) and Bayer’s Crop Science (a Bayer division with its industry-leading R&D pipeline and portfolio of seeds & traits, crop protection and digital farming solutions, December 2023).
Moreover, on March 05, 2024 Elsevier and Iktos partnered to deliver an AI-driven synthetic chemistry platform for drug discovery. By combining the world’s largest chemistry database, Reaxys from Elsevier, with cutting-edge AI from Iktos, the new platform will enable pharmaceutical companies to identify pre-clinical drug candidates faster. Finally, on July 08, 2024 Iktos acquired Synsight, a life sciences technology company specializing in protein-protein and RNA-protein interactions-targeted drug discovery. Synsight is a deep tech company developing a screening technology that enables the development of effective first-in-class drug candidates for RNA targeting, based on a discovery platform of AI and cell imaging. The French Synsight developed the Microtubule Bench technology (MT bench®), from a research tool to an industrialized cell testing to screen molecules by microscopy, making possible to identify and quantify the modulations of small molecules on proteins and nucleic acids with convergence of High-Content.
On March 9, 2023, Iktos announced the closing of a €15.5M Series A financing to expand its existing SaaS software and to launch Iktos Robotics: a unique drug discovery platform which combines AI and automation of chemical synthesis. The funding round was co-led by new investors M Ventures and Debiopharm Innovation Fund with participation from Omnes Capital (Iktos raises €15.5m Series A round to expand its artificial intelligence-based drug discovery technologies and solutions).
Altris AI
Altris.AI is an emerging eye AI imaging 👓company applying computer vision and DL algorithms to build innovative ophthalmology diagnosis and real-time support, for automatic, structural and quantitative analysis, as well as detection of retinal diseases on Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) scans.
Founded by Maria Znamenska—the owner of an ophthalmic clinic in Kyiv, Ukraine and a PhD in Ophthalmology—and Andrey Kuropyatnyk—an MBA and IT consultant in Greater Málaga Metropolitan Area in Spain—Altris AI improves the diagnostic process in ophthalmology by automating the detection of more than 70+ pathologies on OCT images utilizing AI. The system is based on the biggest dataset of clinical cases.
Their first prototype for the detection of two pathological conditions and a normal retina was developed in November 2017. In April 2018, Altris.AI was among the winners of the Global New Venture Challenge, a global startup competition of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In April 2018, the company Altris Inc. was incorporated, and is now headquartered in the USA with R&D centers located in Kyiv, Ukraine and Malaga, Spain.
In May 2019, the company signed the first partnership agreement with Huvitz Corporation, a South Korean ophthalmic equipment manufacturer aiming to develop AI solutions for OCT interpretation. In July 2019, Altris.AI received a CE-mark certificate as medical software for OCT interpretation with AI. In September 2019, the company released Altris AI, the first commercially available AI solution for OCT interpretation at the EURETINA conference getting positive feedback from the ophthalmology community. In February 2020, the company signed a partnership agreement with Topcon Healthcare—a manufacturer offering the latest integrated solutions including advanced multimodal imaging, vendor-neutral data management and groundbreaking remote diagnostic technology—and Optopol—the manufacturer of the world's first Spectral Domain OCT.
In May 2020, Altris.AI started R&D activities in OCT structural analysis for early retina neurodegeneration detection (Glaucoma, Multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease). In the first half of 2023, they were featured in the Ophthalmology Times, Eyes on Eyecase, the Eyewire, the Ophthalmologist, and the New Optometrist, and Optometry Today as one of the promising AI startups in the eye care industry.
In September 2023, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted 510(k) clearance of Altris IMS platform, the company’s image and data management platform.
In February 2024, they added the Early Glaucoma Risk Assessment module, which will be a game changer for the eye care industry.
📣 Altris AI and Heidelberg Engineering just announced a new partnership.
From now on, AltrisAI platform will be available on AppWay, and all HEYEX 2 users can create AI-powered OCT reports.
Basecamp Research
Basecamp Research (2019, UK) is a biotechnology company that partners with R&D teams to develop proteins that meet their most challenging requirements in applications as food, pharma and bioremediation. Having sampled from most extreme and extraordinary biomes on the planet, their knowledge graph of natural biodiversity is the most comprehensive and diverse in existence. This data advantage allows them to rapidly develop AI models. The company was founded by Oliver Vince and Glen Gowers.
On March 12, 2024, Basecamp Research announced the launch of BaseFold, its new deep learning model that predicts 3D structures of large, complex proteins more accurately than other AI-powered tools, including the industry gold standard, AlphaFold2 (IMPROVING ALPHAFOLD2 PERFORMANCE WITH A GLOBAL METAGENOMIC & BIOLOGICAL DATA SUPPLY CHAIN).
BaseFold was created by augmenting the AlphaFold2 model, which predicts the 3D structure of a protein based on its amino acid sequence, with BaseGraph. BaseGraph is Basecamp Research's purpose-built foundational dataset for biological AI, collected via access and benefit-sharing partnerships with over 25 biodiversity-rich countries. Furthermore, Basecamp Research will be working with NVIDIA to optimize and productionize BaseFold for NVIDIA BioNeMo.
On June 18, 2024, Basecamp Research partnered with the Ferruz Laboratory at the Institute of Molecular Biology of Barcelona to unveil ZymCTRL ("enzyme control"). Modeled after large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, ZymCTRL allows users to generate ✂️ new enzyme sequences simply by inputting an enzyme identification code, specifying the desired activity (Basecamp Research and Ferruz Laboratory Announce ZymCTRL: A Revolutionary AI Tool for Enzyme Design).
ZymCTRL represents a significant leap forward, offering an end-to-end solution that bypasses the need for a seed sequence, thus providing users with unparalleled control over the design process. This next-generation tool is not only rapid and cost-effective but also capable of creating enzyme sequences with only 30% resemblance to those in its training set, broadening the horizons for novel enzyme development.
For more:
How Basecamp Research Helps Catalog Earth’s Biodiversity
Phil Lorenz, CTO at Basecamp Research, discusses how using AI and biodiversity data allows researchers to advance fields like medicine and environmental conservation with host Noah Kravitz in a AI Podcast episode recorded live at the NVIDIA GTC global AI conference.
Basecamp Research is a member of the NVIDIA Inception program for cutting-edge startups.
Basecamp Research has now raised a total of $30M.
Blackbird VC
Black Bird VC is based in Australia and New Zealand and invests in every type of technology from software to space. They invest in the best startup companies all the way through their journey from idea to beyond IPO. Their portfolio is worth over $7B and includes some of the most successful Aussie and Kiwi startups including Canva, Zoox, SafetyCulture, Culture Amp and Halter. In the TechBio sector they invest into:
🚙 Inventia Life Science (2023, Australia) develops solutions to create advanced cell models and help forward-thinking pioneers in the fields of drug discovery and biomedical research to create human tissue for research and therapy. Their machine (RASTRUM™ Instrument) creates advanced cell models which most closely and predictably imitate real human tissue structure and behavior across a range of disease states. This physiological complexity offers an environment in which world-class research and discovery can occur, right in your own lab. In particular, RASTRUM™ is drop-on-demand technology that deposits nanoliter droplets of cells and matrix components to build 3D cell models in a way that's rapid, precise and gentle on cells.
On December 04, 2023, Inventia Life Science launched the Inventia Third Dimension Grant. This grant will allow researchers studying fundamental biology or drug development to model and test hypotheses using 3D cell cultures. These advanced models enable scientists to test questions they’d be unable to answer using 2D cell cultures or animal models (Inventia Life Science Announces Third Dimension Grant for 3D Cell Culture Research).
🚗 Sahha AI (2021, Australia) offers all the tools you need to collect and analyze health and wearable data so you can build next generation health & fitness apps. You can pull data from wearables and smartphones through integrations with Apple Health, Google Health Connect, including: Android & Google devices, Oura Ring, Samsung, Garmin, Whoop, Peloton, Polar and more.
🛻 Vexev (2018, Australia) is building the next generation of non-invasive medical imaging and intelligent patient monitoring. They offer solutions for: For Vascular Labs, For Dialysis Providers and For Healthcare Professionals.
Corrdyn
CorrDyn (US, 2015) is a data-driven technology consultancy that enables scalable and affordable growth. At CorrDyn, they have a team of experts in data, engineering and technology who partner with clients to enable innovation, efficiency and scale. They provide strategic planning and implementation that allows for continual improvement on a sustainable budget, with a defined return on investment. More about their capabilities (Data Engineering, Business Intelligence, Enterprise Software, Digital Transformation, ML, Systems Integration, Process Automation and Technology Strategy) here.
Their primary experience is in developing data infrastructure for biotech firms, especially high-throughput data pipelines, low-latency reporting, ML models and ML operations platforms. For example, for a healthcare e-commerce company the CorrDyn team:
Developed a data pipeline from each SaaS provider and proprietary system to a BigQuery data warehouse, utilizing serverless processing and storage methods to keep infrastructure costs manageable and forecastable.
Created complex metadata attribution rules to determine which product category, parent SKU, and child SKU should be associated with each revenue line item, cost line item, and return line item.
Normalized data into a single source of truth for sales, product expenses, advertising expenses, and returns at the product category, parent SKU, and child SKU levels. And
Built an automated business intelligence suite in Looker to provide visibility into sales, marketing, and operations to all decision-makers.
Data in Biotech by CorrDyn is a fortnightly podcast exploring how companies leverage data to drive innovation in life sciences (guests: Cody Schiffer, Vera Mucaj, Harry Rickerby, Pradeep Ravindra and many more).
Tierra Biosciences
Tierra Biosciences (2015, US) is a synthetic biology company that accelerates the pace of discovery and enables the next generation of bio-based materials, with its AI-driven Tierra Protein Platform, that couples high-throughput protein manufacturing with the simplicity of e-commerce to make ordering custom proteins easier than ever before.
Advances in DNA synthesis, DNA sequencing and de novo protein design have made exploration of diverse sets of sequences easier. But the challenge has now moved to protein synthesis and the solution is the cell-free expression Tierra Protein Platform, where you can:
Input your digital protein sequences and get AI-driven computational insights into synthesis profiles and risks.
Then receive physical, testable proteins that have gone through extensive experimental validation and QA/QC. All through a single digital portal.
Tierra’s proprietary cell-free expression technology utilizes the components of a living cell, but not the cell itself, since engineering and manipulating cells can be a challenge. Then by combining automation, computational analysis and high-throughput cell-free expression, is synthesizing proteins from diverse sources.
By providing high throughput rapid protein synthesis from digital protein sequences, Tierra allows you to move quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively to your downstream assays to screen and identify hits.
Finally, you can get your custom, purified µg- and mg-scale proteins in as little as 3 weeks.
Tierra’s technology was originally developed at Caltech. Co-founders are Zachary Sun and George Church, one of the living legends of modern genetics.
With applications in biopharma (Antibody engineering, Difficult-to-express proteins and Drug Targets) and synthetic biology (Computationally designed proteins en masse, Protein engineering, Toxic Proteins, Pathway and metabolic engineering and Metagenomic Screening), Tierra Biosciences raised in March 2024 a $11.4M series A to expand its designer protein-to-order platform.