Nxera Pharma and Antiverse partner on GPCRs

Japan’s Nxera Pharma (TYO: 4565) – formerly known as Sosei – and Antiverse, a UK techbio company designing antibodies for challenging targets, have today announced a multi-target partnership and licensing agreement to design antibodies for G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs).

The company noted that the collaboration combines Antiverse’s generative AI antibody design expertise, including its proprietary machine-learning-generated ‘epitope-specific libraries,’ with Nxera’s NxWave platform, a powerful tool for GPCR target selection, validation and structural determination. The partnership aims to bring transformative therapies for multiple diseases of high unmet need. The first project will be aimed at designing antibodies with agonistic function for a challenging GPCR target.

Under the terms of the multi-year agreement, Antiverse will receive an undisclosed upfront payment and research funding and is eligible for milestone payments. Nxera will retain an exclusive worldwide license to the antibody assets, providing full rights to develop and commercialize the candidates. Nxera’s shares fell 3.2% to 1,174 yen following the announcement.