Digest 8/4/23
Surveying great inventors and businesses
Axial: https://linktr.ee/axialxyz
Axial partners with great founders and inventors. We invest in early-stage life sciences companies such as Appia Bio, Seranova Bio, Delix Therapeutics, Simcha Therapeutics, among others often when they are no more than an idea. We are fanatical about helping the rare inventor who is compelled to build their own enduring business. If you or someone you know has a great idea or company in life sciences, Axial would be excited to get to know you and possibly invest in your vision and company . We are excited to be in business with you - email us at info@axialvc.com
Biologics represent over $200B in annual revenue. This has given space for unique business models that act as service providers to grow to billion-dollar companies from Abimab to AbCellera.
Now with >100 antibody discovery service companies out there and maybe 1000 biotechs developing biologics, the market is increasingly crowded. On the services side, there is a push to new formats like bispecifics and ADCs, enhancing existing platforms like mouse translational models and phage display, and building verticals out around specific diseases.
Over 3300 mAbs are in development with ~570 ADCs and ~330 bispecifics. With around 80% of these programs still at the preclinical stage. There’s always going to be countless opportunities for platform companies to fit in here. But many will have to use their services as a springboard to drug development, defraying costs of platform build-out. Otherwise, you’ll have to scale to >100 partnered programs. And the numbers don’t add up given the number of service companies out there. So only a countable number of companies will build businesses similar to AbCellera.
Beyond the technical challenges and matching the right discovery platform to a partner, there still exists an emerging workflow problem. There isn’t a definitive repo of available therapeutic antibodies. Nor a standard software design tool for biologics. It’s mainly an IP problem; companies will not share their libraries because they cost so much to generate. De novo designed biologics offer a workaround here because costs are mainly compute. But these methods often require an exciting binder scaffold and that means you’ve already kind of solved the problem for a target. Software products in biologics are still small/fragmented because most of them do not help with candidate selection and biotech/biopharma just want an antibody to develop.
As biologics become a commoditized modality, that will offer a window to a marketplace or software company to emerge as a new service provider. And also massively increase the value of capable drug developers.
Shape Therapeutics:
- Founded in 2018 to develop RNA-targeting medicines to repair the genetic causes of disease
- Combining ADAR technology with next-generation AAVs to develop drugs for rare disorders to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and more
Psychedelics promote plasticity by directly binding to BDNF receptor TrkB led by Rafael Moliner from the Eero Castrén lab https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-023-01316-5
Scientist Stories: Neeha Zaidi, New Approaches to Cancer Vaccines
"After years of studying leaders and their traits, I believe that leadership begins and ends with authenticity.
Authentic leaders genuinely desire to serve others through their leadership."
- Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic
