IBIO - iBio and AstralBio Announce Transformative AI drug discovery Collaboration to Rapidly Develop Novel Antibodies for Obesity and Cardiometabolic Diseases | Benzinga
– Leading AI and precision biologics innovators to build a diverse set of novel best-in-class obesity treatments –
– iBio to use its patented generative AI/Machine Learning platform to discover, engineer and develop obesity-focused therapeutic targets –
– Concurrent $15M PIPE financing, announced yesterday, extends cash runway through fiscal year 2025 and provides support for collaboration –
– Company to host webcasted conference call today at 8:30 a.m. EDT to discuss AstralBio collaboration –
BRYAN, Texas and SAN DIEGO, March 27, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- iBio, Inc. (NYSEA:IBIO) ("iBio" or the "Company") announces today that it has entered into a collaboration agreement with AstralBio, Inc. ("AstralBio") to discover, engineer and develop novel antibodies to treat obesity and other cardiometabolic conditions.
Yesterday, iBio announced the closing of a $15 million private placement financing with ADAR1 Capital Management, Lynx1 Capital Management, Ikarian Capital and other institutional investors. The company will use a portion of the net proceeds to support new partnerships, such as this collaboration with AstralBio.
The goal of this transformative collaboration is to rapidly build a novel, best-in-class cardiometabolic disease portfolio by combining iBio's ability to create antibodies against hard-to-drug targets with AstralBio's significant biologics experience and drug development expertise. As part of the collaboration, iBio has granted an exclusive license to its AI-powered technology to identify and engineer four (4) targets for the treatment of cardiometabolic disease, of which AstralBio may continue the pre-clinical development and deploy its proven drug development expertise to advance candidates to an Investigational New Drug (IND) application. iBio has the exclusive option to license three (3) cardiometabolic targets from AstralBio and will receive the rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize those targets upon exercise. As a result of this collaboration, iBio and AstralBio have agreed to initiate the development of a novel lead program focused on targeting the transforming growth factor beta (TGFb) superfamily for the treatment of muscle wasting and obesity. Upon mutual consent, the parties may also expand the collaboration to include additional targets in other fields.
"We are ...