Guide Startups

Abalone Bio

Winter 2020 · Active

We create activating antibodies to treat diseases others can’t.

Location: Emeryville, CA, US

Founded: 2018

Team size: 14

About

Abalone Bio is tackling challenging undrugged targets underlying diseases affecting millions, focusing first cell-specific antibody drugs to treat obesity and metabolic disease without the GI side effects that cause 25% of GLP-1 drug patients to quit after 1 year. + High throughput experimental measurement uniquely leverages AI/ML: We’ve engineered cells to measure antibodies for pharmacological activity, not just structure or binding like others, 100 million at a time, 100X+ the throughput of others. With our large, proprietary activity datasets, we uniquely leverage ML to both unlock the discovery of rare hits and generate optimized hits for challenging targets, starting with G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) + Proven success: We have developed antibody agonists (activators) for 2 out of the 8 G-protein coupled receptors ever drugged by biotech. + Pharma traction: We’ve secured 3 partnerships with $3M in revenue and $125M in downstream value. + Externally validated science: We’ve been awarded $7M in non-dilutive grant funding for platform and program development.

Founders

  • Richard YuFounder

    Rich has been in or around biotech startups since 2008, when co-founded GPB, an algae biofuel startup. He was also Scientific and Operations Director at MBC Biolabs, the leading biotech incubator in SF, and Principal at Mission Bay Capital, a life science VC fund. Prior, he was an investigator at The Molecular Sciences Institute studying how cells process information. PhD (2000) Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale BA (1993) Biophysics and Computer Science (AI and Graphics), UC Berkeley

  • Gustavo PesceFounder