Thirty-six antibody-based biologics achieved blockbuster drug status (yearly sales exceeding a billion dollars) last year, and Humira alone generated $19.9 billion of global sales. Most biologics are monoclonal antibodies that, due to their extreme specificity, hold the promise to treat a variety of medical conditions for which no other treatments are currently available. Biologic drug development, however, still suffers from a high attrition rate, i.e. many molecules that enter the costly development pipeline fail before they reach the market, and many targets are hard to hit with current technologies. The problem is the nature of the biologics development pipeline: antibodies, for example, are discovered and selected based on their function, then re-engineered to address many crucial aspects needed for developing a successful drug (manufacturability, long-term stability, immunogenicity).

We are proposing to overhaul the biologics development process: we want to develop an integrated platform for the generation of innovative bio-therapeutics with a superior profile using in silico rational protein design methods. Our proprietary software suite for protein design based on the FoldX force field has been extensively validated and independent studies confirmed FoldX as one of the best tools for this task. In this project, we want to transform this software suite into a protein design and engineering platform and focus on novel therapeutic antibody development.

The ultimate goal is to launch FoldCo, the protein design company in Flanders, centred around our proprietary FoldX protein design platform. The company will have its own biotherapeutics pipeline combined with an active partnering strategy to maximally exploit the potential of the technology.