- Advances in computing enable earlier and more widespread use of antibody-antigen structural information throughout the drug discovery process
- These advances have the potential to transform antibody discovery methods, expanding therapeutic applications and accelerating the development of innovative molecules.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. And BRUSSELS, January 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — UCB, a global biopharmaceutical company, and XtalPi, a global leader in AI-driven drug discovery, today announced a licensing agreement for XtalFold™, a biological AI platform developed by Ailux Biologics, a division of XtalPi.
Under the terms of this agreement, Ailux Biologics grants UCB a non-exclusive license to exploit XtalFold™ for the discovery and engineering of biologics. XtalFold™ is a proprietary AI-powered software suite that provides rapid and accurate structural insights to accelerate biologics innovation across multiple phases.
“UCB has long been a pioneer in leveraging computing to develop highly differentiated biologics that benefit patients.” declared Jian MaCEO of XtalPi, “We are proud to contribute to their efforts to create life-transforming therapies.” Yi (Alex) LiVice President of XtalPi and Director of Ailux Biologics, said: “The recent Nobel Prize highlighted the revolutionary impact of protein structure prediction. XtalFold™ exemplifies this innovation, offering a solution that is commercially validated and rapidly adopted by the industry. We are delighted to join forces with UCB to further explore its potential.”
XtalFold™ uses unique sequence information to model the interaction between biomolecules, which form the basis of biotherapeutics like monoclonal antibodies. In rigorous benchmark studies, XtalFold™ has achieved industry-leading performance in overall success rates and quality of difficult-to-model regions like the antibody-antigen interface. XtalFold™ has been licensed to several global pharmaceutical companies and has produced highly impactful results in a variety of projects including antigen design, epitope identification, affinity maturation, sensitivity engineering to pH and the design of bispecifics.
“UCB has a strong heritage in antibody discovery and engineering. We have developed unique and powerful single B cell screening and in vitro display discovery technologies to support hit identification and are pioneering structure-based and computer-aided molecule optimization. ™ goes further, integrating antibody-antigen structural information across the entire antibody discovery and optimization workflow,” said Daniel Lightwood, Head of Antibody Discovery and Optimization. Alexander Hillisch, Global Head of CADD at UCB, added: “Our decision to license this tool comes after extensive testing and evaluation against other IT approaches and we believe it has the potential to enhance UCB’s ability to quickly and efficiently discover high-quality therapeutic antibody candidates and ultimately deliver new medicines to patients. »
About UCB
UCB, Brussels, Belgium (www.ucb.com) is a global biopharmaceutical company focused on the discovery and development of innovative medicines and solutions to transform the lives of people with serious diseases of the immune system or central nervous system. With around 9,000 people in around 40 countries, the company generated a turnover of 5.3 billion euros in 2023. UCB is listed on Euronext Brussels (symbol: UCB). Follow us on Twitter: @UCB_news.
About XtalPi
XtalPi (“XtalPi Holdings Limited”, stock code: 2228.HK) is an innovative quantum physics-based, AI-powered and robotics-driven R&D platform company. Created in 2015 by three physicists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (WITH), the company is dedicated to intelligent and digital transformation in the life sciences and materials sciences industries. XtalPi combines quantum physics, AI, cloud computing and large-scale robotics to provide R&D solutions and services to the biomedicine, chemistry, renewable energy and advanced materials industries globally .
About Ailux Biologics
Ailux Biologics is a division of XtalPi (“XtalPi Holdings Limited”, stock code: 2228.HK) dedicated to innovation in large molecule drug discovery. With a team of approximately 100 experts, Ailux has created a cutting-edge biologics discovery lab, a proprietary database purpose-built for AI (AtlaX™), and a trio of AI platforms, including a suite of structure modeling (XtalFold™), a generative extended language model for proteins (XenProT™), and a predictive AI suite for biologics (Xentient™). Ailux partners with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to accelerate their biologics programs with AI-driven, laboratory-validated solutions. To learn more, visit https://ailuxbio.com/ and follow @Ailux Biologics on Linkedin.
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SOURCE EXtalPi Inc.
