Company moves offices and labs to Fenway biotech hub to support its pioneering approach to engineering novel proteins for drug development.
BOSTON–(BUSINESS WIRE)–AI Proteins (“AIP”), the biotechnology company bringing a novel approach to therapeutic development with its de novo protein design platform, today announced that Wendy Dwyer has joined the company as Chief Business Officer. In her role, Ms. Dwyer will help lead AIP in forming partnerships to demonstrate the power of its high-throughput miniprotein design platform in developing new pharmaceutical therapies.
The company also announced today a move to a larger office and lab facilities in the Fenway biotech hub in Boston. This news comes on the heels of AIP’s launch out of stealth in November and the announcement of a $18.2 million seed round.
“I’m delighted to welcome Wendy onto our team,” said Dr. Chris Bahl, founder, President, and CSO of AI Proteins. “She has incredible insight into the biotech industry, and brings a distinguished track record of success in securing partnerships that ultimately result in better medicines for more people.”
Dwyer brings an extensive understanding of partner needs across every stage of drug development, with a career that includes roles at Surface Oncology, Ispen Bioscience, AstraZeneca, and Portal Instruments. While at Surface Oncology, she led the close of a transformative partnership with GSK around a preclinical asset.
“AIP transforms the way companies bring medicines to market, and I’m incredibly excited to be part of it,” said Dwyer. “Its high-throughput platform acts as an accelerant in the early stages of drug development, helping partners reduce risks and speed time to development for promising new therapies.”
AIP addresses an ongoing problem in the development of new medicines: the significant costs and time associated with validating engineered proteins prior to pre-clinical testing. Today, pharmaceutical companies must assume this burden themselves, which increases program risks and delays potentially life-changing treatments.
“What really distinguishes AI Proteins from other companies that engineer proteins is its ability to do extensive testing,” Dwyer added. “AIP tests and optimizes proteins in its on-site lab to ensure their readiness for IND-enabling studies.”
With its expanded, robot-enabled laboratory in Fenway, the company will be able to perform additional in-vitro functional validation and optimize its manufacturing processes.
Partners will be able to take advantage of the incredible benefits of de novo protein design for the very first time, as the method has previously been confined to academia. Using its platform, AIP can design miniproteins that solve specific issues, resulting in proteins that are more stable, while being easier and cheaper to manufacture. With engineered, lab-tested miniproteins from AIP, partners can advance to pre-clinical studies faster and better protect their IP.
ABOUT AI PROTEINS
Boston-based AI Proteins is a biotech company on a mission to re-imagine protein therapeutics with a novel approach for designing entirely new proteins. Using AI-based design and a high-throughput drug discovery platform, AI Proteins creates de novo proteins optimized for specific therapeutic applications. The AI Proteins platform enables the development of inexpensive, durable, highly specific proteins that can be optimized for oral delivery. For more information, please visit aiproteins.com.
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