The technology uses a library of thousands of naturally occurring and engineered signal peptides to measure the efficiency of protein biogenesis in the secretory pathway – the machinery responsible for folding, modifying, and secreting therapeutic proteins.
“The secretory pathway is one of the remaining black boxes in therapeutic protein production. Despite its importance, the current industry standard relies heavily on a decades-old playbook, testing only a small set of safe signal peptides rather than exploring thousands of sequence variants. Our technology makes the increasingly complex proteins, such as AI-designed proteins or multispecifics, more manufacturable, improving access to lifesaving therapies,” comments Tero-Pekka Alastalo, CEO and co-founder of Avenue Biosciences.
Signal peptides are intrinsic components of proteins
Signal peptides represent a major untapped opportunity in biotechnology, as they critically affect protein production and quality at the cellular level.
“Novel protein-based biologics under development for example in cancer, rare diseases or immunology, are becoming increasingly targeted and effective, performing several functions with one therapeutic component: Bring immune cells to the right place, activate them, and recognize disease cells more specifically. However, this adds complexity to the protein structure, adding manufacturing cost, or in the worst case, preventing the development completely,” comments COO, co-founder and Helsinki laboratory site lead Katja Rosti.
Ultimately, the signal peptides are removed from the mature protein, keeping the target essentially the same as the original, making this approach highly useful also in manufacturing biosimilars, the lower-priced versions of existing therapies.
The Avenue technology collects industry-first data sets on how specific signal peptides impact specific protein targets. It is tapping into some of the largest opportunities in current biotech, significantly lowering the costs of biologics and transforming therapeutic protein manufacturing with the use of AI.
This financing brings Avenue Biosciences’ total funding raised to date since 2024 to $8.7M. Avenue Biosciences’ technology originates from years of research at the University of Helsinki, and the Ville Paavilainen laboratory.
Further information:
CEO Tero-Pekka Alastalo
COO Katja Rosti
Communications:
Juulia Simonen
+35850 305 9018