Nxera Pharma & Antiverse Enter Collaboration to Design Novel GPCR-Targeted Antibody Therapeutics Using Generative AI

Nxera Pharma and Antiverse recently announced a multi-target partnership and licensing agreement to design antibodies for G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs). The collaboration combines Antiverse’s generative AI antibody design expertise, including its proprietary machine-learning-generated “epitope-specific libraries,” with Nxera’s NxWave platform, a powerful tool for GPCR target selection, validation and structural determination. The partnership aims to bring transformative therapies for multiple diseases of high unmet need. The first project will be aimed at designing antibodies with agonistic function for a challenging GPCR target.

Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, Antiverse will receive an upfront payment and research funding and is eligible for milestone payments. Nxera will retain an exclusive worldwide license to the antibody assets, providing full rights to develop and commercialize the candidates.

Murat Tunaboylu, Co-founder and CEO at Antiverse, said “Around 220 GPCRs with known disease links are undrugged, and antibodies are an essential tool in our mission to drug them. With Nxera’s expertise and support, we are confident our platform can create antibodies for these particularly challenging targets, bringing us closer to creating life-changing therapies for patients.”

Matt Barnes, EVP, President of Nxera Pharma UK and Head of R&D, added “Our NxWave platform has proven utility in unlocking GPCRs to antibody discovery and combining Nxera’s capabilities with Antiverse’s generative AI antibody design platform enables us to explore this exciting opportunity further, with the aim of developing new biologic therapeutics for multiple diseases, where there is high unmet patient need.”

For Nxera, there is no material financial impact for full year 2024.

Nxera Pharma (formerly Sosei Heptares) is a technology powered biopharma company, in pursuit of new specialty medicines to improve the lives of patients with unmet needs in Japan and globally.

In addition to several products being commercialized in Japan, we are advancing an extensive pipeline of over 30 active programs from discovery through to late clinical stage internally and in partnership with leading pharma and biotech companies. This pipeline is focused on addressing major unmet needs in some of the fastest-growing areas of medicine across neurology, GI and immunology, metabolic disorders and rare diseases, and leverages the power of our unique and industry leading GPCR-targeted structure-based drug discovery NxWave™ platform to provide a sustainable source of best- or first-in-class candidates.

Nxera employs over 350 talented people at key locations in Tokyo and Osaka (Japan), London and Cambridge (UK), Basel (Switzerland) and Seoul (South Korea) and is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (ticker: 4565). For more information, visit www.nxera.life.

Antiverse is an artificial intelligence-driven techbio company specialising in antibody design against challenging targets, including G-protein coupled receptors and ion channels. Headquartered in Cardiff, UK and with offices in Boston, USA, and Prague, Czechia, Antiverse combines state-of-the-art machine learning techniques and advanced cell line engineering to develop de novo antibody therapeutics.

Antiverse has collaborated with multiple top global pharmaceutical companies. They are developing a strong internal pipeline of antibodies against several challenging drug targets across various indications. For more information, visit https://antiverse.io.