Avenue Biosciences, a transatlantic biotechnology firm specialising in novel protein engineering applied sciences, introduced the profitable closing of their €2.3 million seed financing spherical. Led by Voima Ventures, with further participation from Inventure and US angel buyers, the funding will speed up the event of Avenue Biosciences platform, designed to enhance the effectivity of protein manufacturing within the biopharmaceutical trade.
The know-how guarantees to shorten improvement occasions and decrease prices for crucial therapies, making remedies similar to monoclonal antibodies, gene therapies, and mRNA-based vaccines extra accessible to sufferers globally. By addressing one in every of biotech’s greatest challenges, environment friendly and scalable protein manufacturing, Avenue Biosciences platform will remodel the velocity of life-saving therapies being dropped at market.
“The potential for impression is immense,” mentioned Tero-Pekka Alastalo, CEO of Avenue Biosciences. “With this platform, we aren’t solely optimising the manufacturing course of however enabling quicker entry to therapies that might considerably change sufferers’ lives.”
Avenue’s proprietary know-how screens and optimises sign peptides, the important thing to guiding protein supply inside cells, utilizing machine studying to boost effectivity. Consider the know-how like this: You might be sending a bundle via the put up. The sign peptide is just like the handle label, guiding the bundle (protein) to its vacation spot inside the cell.
As soon as delivered, the label is eliminated, and the bundle is prepared for use. Avenue Bioscience’s know-how works like a wise GPS, optimising and bettering supply routes (sign peptides). The end result? A platform that accelerates the event of advanced proteins crucial for subsequent era remedies, from most cancers immunotherapies to artificial proteins and mRNA vaccines.
The corporate is poised to launch business gross sales of the platform in This fall, which is able to additional gasoline the event of life-changing therapies. With operations primarily based in Helsinki and a strategic headquarters in San Francisco, Avenue is positioned to faucet into each Nordic experience and North American markets, driving development within the EU and past.
Avenue Biosciences was born from years of analysis on the College of Helsinki. Based by Analysis Director Ville Paavilainen and CEO Tero-Pekka Alastalo, who first collaborated throughout their post-doctoral work at Stanford and UCSF, the corporate brings collectively a workforce of consultants.
Joined by COO Katja Rosti and CSO Juho Kellosalo, The management workforce is out to unravel one in every of biotechnology’s greatest challenges—scalable and environment friendly protein manufacturing. Their distinctive strategy, backed by deep scientific data, drives ahead the subsequent era of life-saving therapies. Avenue Biosciences’ mission is to beat the crucial bottleneck in fashionable biotech: enabling quicker, cost-effective protein manufacturing for breakthrough medical remedies.
Jenny Engerfelt, Voima Ventures Associate, commented: “This know-how faucets right into a quickly increasing biopharmaceutical market, poised for substantial development. By making the manufacturing of advanced proteins extra environment friendly and reasonably priced, it not solely accelerates the event of progressive remedies but additionally considerably enhances the business scalability of those therapies. This positions us to seize vital worth whereas bettering entry to life-saving medicines throughout a wider vary of ailments.”
Tuomas Kosonen, Inventure Associate, mentioned: “Their progressive strategy to a persistent bottleneck in protein manufacturing has the potential to disrupt the biopharmaceutical trade. We’re particularly excited to assist Tero-Pekka for the second time because the workforce works in direction of realising the complete potential of their know-how.”
