Liquid Brain: Revolutionising Antibody-Target Binding and Developability Analysis with Neuromorphic Sensing and Computing

For 50-years, the UK has led the world in developing monoclonal antibodies. Today, there are over 100 monoclonal antibodies approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, and the global monoclonal antibody therapeutics market is valued at USD279.8bn (Dimension Market Research).

However, efforts to develop novel therapeutics remain stymied by the persistently high failure rates, particularly at clinical stages of development, when approximately 90% of drug candidates fail. Regarding biologics, poor developability is estimated to account for one third of clinical-stage failures, costing approximately USD450m per biologic developed.

Through examination of the clinical-stage antibody landscape, researchers have established the key biophysical properties that define developability (Jain et al., 2017), but screening of biophysical properties remains a formidable challenge, particularly with limited material availability.

At the same time, BioTech and Pharma researchers are increasingly focused on the development of next-generation antibodies, which leverage multispecificity (e.g., bispecifics) and drug conjugation (e.g., antibody-drug conjugates) to address the therapeutic shortcomings of first-generation antibodies and improve patient outcomes. These novel antibody formats are increasingly complex and can even be entirely synthetic (e.g., engineered nanobodies), further exacerbating the developability challenge and risking even higher failure rates during clinical-stage development.

Founded in 2021 by Dr Shamit Shrivastava (experimental physicist and inventor of Apoha's Liquid Brain; previously postdoctoral researcher at the University of Oxford) and Anshika Srivastava (skilled in operating and scaling businesses; previously Executive Director/Vice President, Goldman Sachs), Apoha is a seed-stage start-up based in London. Our mission is to empower scientists to design materials with new functional properties inspired by the physics of brain matter.

With Innovate UK funding, we will deploy our neuromorphic sensor and computer, the Liquid Brain, to revolutionise analysis of antibody-target binding and developability, reducing development time, costs, and likelihood of clinical-stage failures, ultimately improving treatment accessibility, affordability, and health outcomes.