BioDuro & neoX Partner to Create Next Generation Antibody Discovery Platform

SAN DIEGO & BEIJING

BioDuro, LLC, a leading drug discovery and development services organization, and neoX, a leading-edge artificial intelligence and biophysics focused biotech, announced today a strategic cooperation to establish the first antibody discovery platform to combine artificial intelligence (AI) and synthetic antibody discovery. The combined platform will enable the companies’ biopharma partners to shorten timelines and improve quality of antibody-based drug development programs, enabling faster path to the clinic.

neoX and BioDuro’s combined platform screens tens of billions of high-impact sequences in a high-throughput manner. The sequences are all synthetic, meaning they are deliberately designed antibodies with optimized affinity, specificity, stability, and therapeutic developability. The platform is especially useful for previously intractable targets, such as GPCRs, ion channels, and peptide-MHC complexes, that have consistently failed development as antibody-based therapeutics.

The AI antibody technology of neoX includes the latest artificial neural network algorithm, machine learning, and molecular dynamics to simulate the directed evolution of each antibody—ultimately outputting optimized sequences that specifically and potently bind the target antigen. These AI-acquired sequences are quickly advanced into experimental screens.

“Out of hugely diversified potential sequences, our platform selects the very best subset to advance into screens; there’s an extraordinary amount of computing and intelligence required to select smaller, smarter and optimal libraries for higher success rate of antibody discovery,” said Michael Chen, PhD, co-founder and CEO of neoX. “Without this advanced AI approach, researchers end up spending a lot of time screening through suboptimal libraries, ending up with suboptimal therapeutics.”

BioDuro’s advanced synthetic antibody technology rapidly transforms the results of AI directed evolution into functional antibodies using high-speed DNA engineering, which is then used to create and screen more than 10 billion human synthetic antibodies. Traditional non-synthetic approaches use the immune system of a human or other animal to generate antibodies, resulting in antibody diversity and developability that is restricted.

“BioDuro’s synthetic antibody screening platform enables us to discover the most optimal antibodies, because we are not limited by a human or animal immune system,” said Xiang Li, DPhil, Senior Vice President, Integrated Biology at BioDuro. “We can design any antibody with virtually infinite combinations of sequences that are optimized through directed evolution, and we make sure to start with a fully human antibody framework that has good development properties, meaning we have a much better likelihood of reaching the clinic—and doing so quickly.”

The companies are also working with several partners to extend the technology into antibody designs for immune cell therapies such as CAR-T and TCR-T, which are highly promising immuno-oncology therapeutics, but have had unexpected outcomes and strong side effects in clinical studies—largely attributed to suboptimal antibody and linker designs. The teams are applying their unique antibody discovery platform to rapidly discover and develop next-generation CAR-T therapy with improved safety and efficacy profiles.

About BioDuro
BioDuro, an Advent International portfolio company, is a leading global life sciences research and development organization that provides biopharmaceutical clients and partners with comprehensive, fully integrated drug discovery and development services, from lead development and IND-enabling studies to GMP manufacture of drug product for clinical trials. Core expertise includes small and large molecule discovery, development and scale up, combined with unique technology platforms such as bioavailability enhancement of insoluble compounds. The company has 4 global sites: headquarters in San Diego, California and 3 major operations in Beijing, Shanghai and Jiangsu, China. BioDuro’s integrated China and US teams afford partners with the benefits of a truly global and seamless operation, significantly accelerating discovery and de-risking development to create higher value outcomes.

For more information on BioDuro, visit:
www.bioduro.com
www.linkedin.com/company/bioduro

For more information on Advent International, visit:
www.adventinternational.com
www.linkedin.com/company/advent-international

About NeoX
NeoX Biotech is a biotech company that combines artificial intelligence (AI) with biophysics for drug research and development. NeoX focuses on the research and development of macromolecular drugs, especially in the field of immuno-oncology. It has developed a sophisticated platform for early discovery of therapeutics by characterizing protein-protein interactions (PPI). NeoX has established cooperation with biomedical companies globally to accelerate drug R&D pipelines. Founded in 2018 by two doctors graduated from MIT and Caltech, neoX has been funded by top venture capitals including Morningside Venture Capital, ZhenFund and Vision Plus Capital.

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