Flagship Pioneering has unveiled a new biotech that’s on a mission to build a new class of biologics with the help of AI.
Abiologics, which made its debut on Tuesday with a $50 million commitment from Flagship, plans to develop a broad drug pipeline with an initial focus on oncology and immunology.
The Cambridge, MA-based biotech will use synthetic “building blocks” to design biologics that can overcome the usual limitations of the drug class, such as not being orally bioavailable or being unstable in the body.
These building blocks include D-amino acids, which are “chemically identical mirror images of standard amino acids,” according to the company. In contrast with L-amino acids — which form the basis of all living organisms — D-amino acids are more resistant to enzyme degradation.
“Around four billion years ago, biology made the fateful decision to only use L-amino acid building blocks, even though D-amino acid building blocks existed,” founding CEO Avak Kahvejian told Endpoints News in an interview.
Abiologics’ platform uses AI to design compounds made entirely of synthetic amino acids — including D-amino acids — that it calls Synteins. These “digitally-optimized” designs are then turned into real biologics.
Synteins are “super-stable” and “not susceptible to protease digestion,” Kahvejian said. When exposed to simulated gastrointestinal fluid, they are not degraded and so could potentially get through to the bloodstream and deep inside tumors or into the brain, he added.
Within oncology, the company is focused on addressing solid tumors and metastases, Kahvejian said. As for immunology, “we’re thinking about things that are orally bioavailable, that act maybe in the gut or act systemically,” he added. However, since the company’s platform is “essentially limitless” in terms of applications, “we’re trying to cast a wide net” across different therapeutic areas.
Abiologics, which was founded in 2021, now employs around 20 people who are split into teams focused on computation, chemistry and preclinical work. The company plans to expand its management team over time by hiring a new CEO and scientific leadership, and also grow its preclinical team, Kahvejian said.
Earlier this month, Flagship said it has $3.6 billion in funding to establish 25 new life science companies. At the time, the incubator told Endpoints that large language models and machine learning are starting to play a bigger role in its portfolio companies, as well as partnerships with pharma.