Alloy Therapeutics was founded in 2017 to create an ecosystem in which scientists from pharma, small and medium-sized biotechs, and academia alike would have equal access to foundational drug discovery tools, technologies, services and company creation capabilities without the typical high-cost and intellectual property barriers. Following Reed’s Law, Alloy’s ecosystem is designed to add exponential value to the drug discovery industry as it grows, by facilitating deeper scientific collaboration among its partners in the fight against disease.
Through its community of partners, Alloy provides affordable, non-exclusive access to critical in vitro and in vivo discovery tools such as its transgenic mouse for the discovery of human monoclonal antibodies, bispecific antibodies and T cell receptor mimics (TCRms), and the company is working on expanding its offerings through the development of additional capabilities in adjacent biologic modalities.
The company’s lead offering, the ATX-Gx platform, is the first royalty-free in vivo human therapeutic antibody discovery platform in the world. The ATX-Gx consists of a suite of proprietary transgenic mouse strains, and with more than 80 partners, it is the fastest growing in vivo human therapeutic antibody platform globally (Fig. 1).
Fig. 1 | Building a biotechnology ecosystem. The value of Alloy’s ecosystem of over 80 partners in academia, biotech and large biopharma is realized in its ability to follow Reed’s Law, by facilitating deeper scientific collaboration among its community of partners.
“Translation is a challenging and uncertain process that is often made more difficult by a lack of access to critical discovery platforms due to affordability and intellectual property issues,” said Errik Anderson, CEO and founder of Alloy Therapeutics. “At Alloy we are building an ecosystem of collaboration across the biopharma community to reduce these barriers to translation and make better medicines together.”
With research facilities both in the USA and the UK, Alloy strives to make its foundational drug discovery capabilities available to all through a flexible partnering model that helps design solutions tailored to complement the internal antibody discovery capabilities of each individual partner.
ATX-Gx—the world’s first royalty-free humanized mouse discovery platform
The ATX-Gx platform consists of a suite of highly immunocompetent transgenic mice engineered to maximize the diversity and epitope coverage of unique human antibodies against a target of interest. The ATX-Gx mice have been optimized to provide comprehensive coverage of both the human heavy chain repertoire and the human κ-chain and λ-chain repertoires while maximizing haplotype diversity and limiting immunodominance. The platform provides a broad range of discovery solutions for biologic therapeutics including monoclonal antibodies, bispecific antibodies, chimeric receptors and TCRms.
Alloy can help researchers start immunizations in the ATX-Gx mice in their own labs in as little as two weeks, access the ATX-Gx platform using their contract research organization of choice, or outsource human therapeutic antibody discovery from target to final human antibody leads by working with Alloy Discovery Services and its proprietary integrated drug discovery process and world-class team.
“ATX-Gx represents Alloy’s high-throughput antibody discovery engine and has been designed to enable the rapid development of high-impact antibody-based therapeutics for patients, in particular of underserved patient populations, worldwide,” said Anderson. “The platform is flexible, and our in-house team of world-class scientists is continuously expanding its capabilities and the services offered in parallel.”
The ATX-Gx mice are available to scientists worldwide through royalty-free and simple licensing agreements, and permission to further engineer the mice through knockouts and other bespoke genetic modifications is also possible. For those companies and scientist-entrepreneurs interested in a closer antibody discovery collaboration, establishing a joint venture or creating a new company together, Alloy offers fully integrated antibody discovery services that include customized antigen design, analytical quality control, immunization of ATX-Gx mice, in vitro antibody repertoire capture via B cell sorting, phage display and other proprietary methods, mid-scale (≤1 mg) to large-scale (≤1 g) antibody production, antibody characterization and cell line development.
Unique partnering opportunities open to all
Alloy’s groundbreaking mission and business model are centered around the simple notion that the biopharmaceutical industry should be singularly focused on getting the best drugs to patients as quickly as possible rather than gaining competitive advantage by limiting access to foundational platforms via cost and intellectual property barriers. To implement this vision, Alloy has devised a three-pronged business model consisting of platforms for broad independent use and distribution, best-in-class discovery services, and venture studios to launch product-centric new companies supported by Alloy’s services and platforms. Following this blueprint, Alloy aims to democratize access to the translational toolbox, streamline lead drug candidate development, and close the translational loop, respectively.
“Reflecting the company’s commitment to the long-term, collaborative ecosystem model, Alloy reinvests 100% of its revenue in innovation and access to innovation,” said Anderson. “Our single focus is to empower the global scientific community to make better medicines together, ensuring technologies and services are available with the appropriate level of exclusivity and opportunities for developing new medicines for patients emerge through collaboration.”