Nabla Bio Advances Generative Protein Design with $26M Series A Funding

Nabla Bio, a biotechnology firm specializing in generative protein design, has successfully closed a $26 million Series A financing round, led by Radical Ventures.

The company also announced significant collaborations with major pharmaceutical players AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb, and Takeda. These partnerships, worth more than $550 total, are set to bolster Nabla Bio's efforts in developing protein drugs.

Nabla Bio co-founders Surge Biswas and Frances Anastassacos at their labs in Cambridge, Mass

Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Nabla Bio leverages a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and wet-lab technologies to facilitate the design of protein drugs. Their platform focuses on high-precision, high-throughput capabilities, initially targeting antibodies against multipass membrane proteins such as G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), ion channels, and transporters. These targets are notoriously challenging due to their membrane integration, limited extracellular accessibility, and complex dynamics.

Traditional drug discovery methods have mostly centered on soluble, extracellular targets, making the ability to drug multipass membrane proteins a significant advancement. Nabla Bio's technology aims to unlock these difficult targets by creating antibodies that are highly selective for specific conformations and proteins. This could potentially double the number of viable drug targets, opening new therapeutic avenues.

Nabla Bio's approach extends beyond membrane proteins to include the design of novel cytokines, multi-domain antibodies, and receptor traps. These advancements demonstrate the platform's broad applicability and potential to enhance in vitro activity and developability compared to existing therapies. The successes here underscore the transformative impact of generative protein design on clinical applications.

The firm was founded in December 2021, building on foundational work in protein language models by co-founder Surge Biswas and his colleagues at Harvard. Co-founder Frances Anastassacos brings experience from biotech venture capital and a PhD from Harvard, reinforcing the company's strong scientific and commercial foundation. Since its inception, Nabla Bio has raised a total of $37 million and continues to expand its team, focusing on top talents in machine learning and synthetic biology.

Topics: Biotech Companies