Avenue Biosciences Oy, a spinout company from the University of Helsinki has developed a novel method for enhancing therapeutic protein production, reducing the time and cost it takes to develop new medicines and vaccines. The discovery is important to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, because of the difficulty and high cost of large-scale production, and time-consuming nature of therapy development.
From cell biology research discovery to scalable technology transforming healthcare
Avenue Biosciences’ solution is based on fundamental cell biology research carried out at the University of Helsinki Institute of Biotechnology. The research group led by Research Director, Dr. Ville Paavilainen, was seeking new drug profiling methods using chemical and structural biology approaches. As part of their discovery research, the team ultimately developed a new method for protein engineering: analysing thousands of signal peptides to find the ones that maximise target protein production.
The solution can be employed to screen vast numbers of DNA constructs encoding various therapeutic proteins. Based on the precise genetic construct, cells can be directed to produce the desired therapeutic proteins in optimally folded and targeted state, resulting in significant improvement to the overall efficiency and quality of protein production, which is especially important for production of difficult-to-express (DTE) medically relevant proteins.
Proprietary method solving development and production barriers with machine learning
Avenue Biosciences' innovative platform creates vast quantities of novel data. This allows the company to create industry-first machine learning models that shed light on the role signal peptides have on their target proteins during different phases of protein production. In the future, choosing the right element for boosting therapeutic production could be completely computational.
“The timing of this proprietary work could not be better, with machine learning and AI transforming protein biologics. We have an exceptional possibility to use our platform to create novel datasets to model protein biogenesis with AI and create new tools for the biotechnology industry. We are here to ensure that no lifesaving therapy goes unrealised because of development and production barriers,” says CEO Tero-Pekka Alastalo.
“We are delighted to have supported the Avenue team, originally a research commercialisation project team Integrated Secretion Solution, in their efforts to develop technology with significant commercial potential and impact. The biotechnology spinout Avenue Biosciences is now ready to move forward, and we anticipate a successful future for this venture," says Helsinki Innovation Services Ltd, CEO, Marko Hakovirta.
Pioneering the global future of biotechnology
The new University of Helsinki spinout company, Avenue Biosciences was founded by Ville Paavilainen, PhD, Research Director at Institute of Biotechnology at the University of Helsinki, together with CEO Tero-Pekka Alastalo, MD, PhD and the method’s co-inventors CSO Juho Kellosalo, PhD and COO Katja Rosti. PhD. Avenue Biosciences Oy was established in 2023 as a limited liability company with two business units, one in Helsinki, Finland and one in San Francisco.
Helsinki University Funds is one of the founding partners and initial seed investors in Avenue Biosciences. Helsinki Innovation Services Ltd, the university's technology transfer and commercialisation company, has collaborated closely with the spinout team to facilitate commercialisation preparation activities and market entry.
Further information:
CEO Tero-Pekka Alastalo, tero-pekka.alastalo@avenuebiosciences.com
Communications: Juulia Simonen, juulia.simonen@avenuebiosciences.com, +358503059018