ASLP ESTABLISHES BIOTECHNOLOGY STARTUP COMPANY WITH US$16MLN IN SERIES A FUNDING

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 27 (Bernama) -- Accelerator Life Science Partners (ALSP), has launched the Series A financing of Automera, a new biotechnology company that focuses on the development of autophagy-targeting chimaera small molecules (AUTACs).

Augmented with quantum chemistry and artificial intelligence (AI) enabled drug discovery tools, Automera’s AUTACs have the broad potential to rapidly generate novel therapeutic leads for a range of diseases. Automera will initially focus its product development efforts to treat cancer.

According to a statement, Automera has secured US$16 million in Series A funding, a co-led endeavour by ALSP and ClavystBio, with participation from Singapore-based global investor EDBI, Xora Innovation, and other undisclosed investors. (US$1=RM4.70)

ALSP Executive Vice President and Automera board member, Alice Chen said Automera exemplifies the innovative scientific and translational research ongoing in the region, as it is ALSP first investment in Singapore.

“We plan to leverage ALSP’s unique company-building capabilities in Singapore, and we look forward to working with the broader Singapore community to enhance the platform technologies and early-stage therapeutic programmes that Automera will develop,” she said.

Meanwhile, Automera co-founder, Loong Wang said: “We greatly value the business and financial support that ALSP provides and are proud that leading healthcare investors are participating in Automera’s Series A financing. With these resources, Automera is well positioned to deploy our AUTAC platform toward the development of potentially transformative therapies.”

Automera’s AUTAC platform is a next-generation approach to realising the potential of targeted protein degradation (TPD) as a therapeutic modality, in which TPD, an emerging field of novel therapeutics, catalyses the degradation of disease-related proteins while retaining the benefits of small molecules.

An early-stage life science accelerator and investment firm that creates and builds next-generation biotechnology companies centred on innovative science, Automera focused on the development of a novel therapeutic approach via autophagy-based targeted protein degradation.

-- BERNAMA