SyntekaBio, a Korean AI drug discovery company, said on Friday it had signed a 530 million won ($393,000) contract with Geovista, an animal antibody drug developer, to optimize therapeutic antibodies for companion animals.
Under the deal, SyntekaBio will apply its AI antibody optimization platform, Ab-ARS, to Geovista’s drug pipeline in a paid commercial engagement. The company said the contract marks the platform’s expansion from human to companion-animal antibody development.
The target is a canine bispecific antibody Geovista is developing. SyntekaBio said it aims to improve the binding affinity of each of the antibody’s two arms, which bind to different target antigens. The company will predict the binding structure between Geovista’s antibody hits and canine antigens, and optimize the amino acid sequences in the antibody’s complementarity-determining regions (CDRs).
Geovista develops antibody drugs for companion animals using its Petidizer-DVM platform, focusing on high unmet-need conditions in dogs such as atopic dermatitis (AD) and osteoarthritis (OA), and is in technology transfer talks with global animal health companies, according to SyntekaBio.
