9Bio is awarded a grant from the National Research Council Canada (NRC-IRAP)
Quebec City, April 22, 2024 – 9Bio Therapeutics, a biotech company pioneering next-generation oncology therapeutics, is pleased to announce that it will receive $75,000 in funding from the National Research Council Canada Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) to support the development of its lead program – a precision antibody-drug conjugate (ADC).
This ADC was engineered to engage tumors while sparing healthy tissues and will target muscle-invasive bladder and liver cancers – cancers with significant unmet medical need. The project will validate 9Bio’s in silico-engineering by translating its computational modeling into the laboratory, confirming tumor-specificity experimentally.
Leveraging AI-guided structural biology for Next-Gen ADCs
9Bio’s approach integrates cutting-edge AI-guided structural biology with computational protein engineering to design highly selective cancer therapies. Unlike conventional ADCs, which can result in significant toxicity to healthy tissues, our platform focuses on limiting therapeutic activity to tumors, reducing systemic exposure, improving safety, and improving efficacy.
“With the support of NRC-IRAP, we are accelerating the development of a best-in-class precision oncology therapy,” said Philipe Gobeil, President and Chief Scientific Officer of 9Bio. “By leveraging AI-guided structural modeling, we can optimize tumor-targeting, ensuring our ADC selectively binds only where it is needed, minimizing toxicity and enhancing therapeutic potential.”
9Bio thanks the NRC IRAP for its support.
About 9Bio Therapeutics
9Bio Therapeutics is a biotech company committed to developing innovative oncology therapeutics. Our AI-guided structural biology platform integrates anatomical and biochemical contexts to design drugs that selectively target tumors. Using this approach, we generate medicines with specificity for tumors that spare healthy tissues, improving safety, efficacy, and opening the door to previously underexploited therapeutic modalities. Our pipeline includes three discovery-stage therapies: an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) targeting tumor cells, an ADC targeting tumor-subverted immune cells, and an engineered cytokine.