Antiverse, a Cardiff-based biotech company, has raised $9.3 million in a Series A funding round. The investment was led by Soulmates Ventures, with support from Innovation Investment Capital, DOMiNO Ventures, and existing investors including DBW, Kadmos Capital, and i&i Biotech Fund. Since launching, the company has now secured over $20 million in total funding. The new capital will help Antiverse expand its proprietary AI platform for designing antibodies and advance its lead programs toward in vivo testing. Additionally, the company aims to strengthen collaborations with pharmaceutical and research partners as it builds its internal pipeline of therapeutic candidates.

Targeting Challenging Disease Proteins with AI

Antiverse specializes in targeting disease areas that are notoriously difficult for traditional antibody discovery methods. Its work focuses on complex targets like G protein-coupled receptors and ion channels, which are often considered “hard to drug.” These targets have historically been resistant to conventional approaches, making them promising but challenging opportunities for new therapies.

Alongside its funding, Antiverse announced a research partnership with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. The goal is to create novel antibodies aimed at the extracellular region of the CFTR protein, which is central to cystic fibrosis. This protein has proven difficult to target effectively with standard antibody technologies, hampering progress in cystic fibrosis research. The partnership will utilize Antiverse’s AI-driven modeling to generate potential antibody candidates. These will be tested within its lab-in-the-loop workflow, which includes expressing the antibodies in cell lines to evaluate their effectiveness. Promising candidates will then be sent to the Foundation’s labs for further testing in models that mimic real biological conditions. The overall aim is to speed up the development of new treatments and bring promising research closer to patients.

Scaling Up AI and Lab Technologies for Better Therapies

The recent funding will be used to scale up Antiverse’s AI-powered antibody design platform and push forward its own therapeutic programs. The company plans to move its first internal candidates into later-stage preclinical testing by 2027. This involves combining computational design with laboratory testing to create more effective and targeted antibodies faster than traditional methods.

Antiverse’s approach integrates advanced AI models with experimental validation, allowing it to explore a wider range of possible antibodies quickly. This strategy aims to address the bottlenecks in traditional antibody discovery, especially for targets that are difficult to drug. The company’s goal is to build a robust pipeline of therapeutic candidates that can eventually move into clinical development and, ultimately, into the hands of patients.

Overall, the latest funding and collaborations reflect Antiverse’s commitment to transforming antibody discovery through AI. By focusing on challenging targets and expanding its technological capabilities, the company aims to accelerate the development of new medicines and make a real difference in areas like cystic fibrosis and other difficult-to-treat diseases.

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