MSF Investments
Boston-based AI Proteins is a biotech company on a mission to re-imagine protein therapeutics with a novel approach for designing entirely new proteins. Using AI-based design and a high-throughput drug discovery platform, AI Proteins creates de novo proteins optimized for specific therapeutic applications. The AI Proteins platform enables the development of inexpensive, durable, highly specific proteins that have the potential for oral delivery. Additionally, the AI Proteins platform can dramatically accelerate the development of lead therapeutic candidates ready for IND enabling studies.
Slingshot Biosciences has developed a novel solution to address a multi-billion-dollar opportunity in healthcare: cell-derived product supply chain. Cell-derived products are a critical component of the healthcare product development lifecycle, providing reference material for diagnostic development, clinical trials, and manufacturing. Traditional cell-based products, however, are plagued by technical challenges that stem from the instability of biological material and cost associated with sourcing efforts. The impact of these technical challenges has enormous ripple effects in the healthcare sector, including bridging studies, cold chain logistics, cell line maintenance costs, clinical trial pauses, and increased manufacturing costs for key classes of therapeutics. This ultimately precludes the cost-effective development of a wide range of therapeutics that can be deployed to treat disease.
Slingshot’s core platform leverages advances in semiconductor manufacturing technology, polymer chemistry, and computer vision to generate synthetic cells which overcome the technical limitations of biologically-derived cellular material. It has been focusing its platform on the largest unmet needs in the sector, which center around diagnostics, manufacturing quality control, and performance testing for cell therapies (CAR-T) aimed at lymphomas and leukemias, with the potential to expand to other indications, including myeloma. In providing a stable and consistent source of reference material for virtually any malignancy, including rare and unaddressed diseases, Slingshot is enabling faster, lower-cost, and more effective development of solutions in oncology, addressing both pre-clinical and on-market therapeutic processes.