LabGenius: Discovery and design of orally available next generation therapeutic candidates using a proprietary machine learning-driven evolution engine (EVA)

**LabGenius是一家药物发现公司，利用其新型药物发现平台EVA开发蛋白质疗法。这个下一代蛋白质工程平台集成了合成生物学、机器人和机器学习领域的几项前沿技术。EVA可以设计、实施并从实验中学习，发现生命科学行业目前无法实现的新型治疗资产，并将其推进到临床前和临床试验。生物制剂药物发现市场的价值约为92亿英镑，其中先导优化阶段的价值约为46亿英镑（Statistica, 2019）。**项目动机**LabGenius旨在利用新型EVA平台提供治疗炎症性肠病（IBD）的一流口服药物，炎症性肠病是一种胃肠道疾病，包括克罗恩病（CD）和溃疡性结肠炎（UC）。IBD是一种慢性疾病，影响了0.5-1%的人口，在英国估计有62万人受到影响。在英国，每位患者每年的平均护理费用超过4600英镑。黄金标准疗法是生物疗法。然而，由于胃和小肠的恶劣条件导致快速降解，生物药物只能全身给药。该项目将产生抵抗胃肠道pH值、蛋白酶和温度的蛋白质抗体。如果成功，它将允许生物制剂口服给药，这不仅是IBD治疗的范式转变，而且还开辟了一种全新的抗体给药方法，目前只能通过肠外给药。所选择的药物靶标是有效的，因为市场上已经有一种成功的针对它的注射药物。该项目预计将为LabGenius带来变革性影响，开拓新市场，创造收入和团队增长，推动研发投资，从而使英国经济受益。

**The Company**LabGenius is a drug discovery company that develops protein therapeutics using its novel drug discovery platform, EVA. This next-generation protein engineering platform integrates several cutting-edge technologies from the fields of synthetic biology, robotics and Machine Learning. EVA can design, conduct and learn from experiments to discover novel therapeutic assets that the lifescience industry is currently unable to achieve and to progress to pre-clinical and clinical trials.The biologics drug discovery market is valued at approximately £9.2 billion, of which the phase of lead optimization was valued at about £4.6 billion (Statistica, 2019).**Project Motivation**LabGenius aims to use the novel EVA platform to deliver a first-in-class oral delivered drug for the treatment of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), a gastrointestinal condition comprising Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). IBD is a chronic disease that affects 0.5-1% of the population with an estimated 620,000 affected in the UK. The average annual care cost is over £4,600 per patient in the UK.Gold standard treatment is with biologic therapeutics. However, biologic drugs can only be administered systemically as the harsh conditions of the stomach and small bowel result in rapid degradation.This project would result in protein antibodies resistant to the pH, proteases and temperature of the GI tract. If successful, it would allow biologics to be delivered orally and would not only be a paradigm shift for the treatment of IBD but also open an entirely new method of administration of antibodies which are currently only administrable parenterally. The chosen drug target is a valid one as there is already a successful injectable drug on the market that is directed to it.This project is anticipated to deliver transformative effects for LabGenius opening new markets, generating revenues and team growth, and driving R&D investment - benefiting the UK economy.