LabGenius has secured £35 million ($44.5 million) in a Series B raise to expand its antibody discovery platform and advance a pipeline of cancer candidates.
The UK biotech will use the same machine learning-powered drug discovery platform, dubbed EVA, to develop targeted solid tumor drugs that could help lessen off-tumor toxicity. EVA was used by LabGenius to help Sanofi identify new candidates for inflammatory diseases as part of a 2021 deal.
New investor M Ventures led the Series B with support from other new backers Octopus Ventures and LG Corp. Existing investors, which include Atomico, Kindred Capital, Lux Capital and Obvious Ventures, were also involved.
The proceeds will provide a runway of “at least a couple of years,” LabGenius CEO James Field told Endpoints News in an interview. “We’re a couple of years away from the clinic for the lead program … and I expect it to enter IND-enabling studies fairly shortly.”
The company is planning to focus on tumor-associated antigens (TAA), which are traditionally considered “dirty” because they’re expressed on both “diseased” and healthy cells, albeit at different levels, Field said. This means that its approach could address the challenge of on-target, off-tumor toxicity.
LabGenius is focusing on TAAs that are upregulated across several different cancer types. “So at this point, we certainly don’t need to select any one specific solid tumor,” Field said.
EVA uses machine learning to design, conduct and learn from its own experiments, yielding “high-performing antibodies with non-intuitive design,” according to a company release. Field said EVA’s ability to overcome human bias was demonstrated by candidates identified last year under its Sanofi collaboration.