Just as a map shows you how to reach a destination in the real world, Ampersand Biomedicines’ map of tissues of the human body shows where a drug should go in the biological one. Now the startup has $65 million to continue its journey with programs progressing in cancer and inflammation.
The Series B financing announced Wednesday comes two years after the Boston-based biotech launched from the labs of Flagship Pioneering. Joining Flagship in the latest round is new investor Eli Lilly along with other financial backers that were not named.
Ampersand is part of a growing number of startups applying artificial intelligence and machine learning to drug research. The company is trying to solve what CEO Jason Gardner says is one of the biggest problems in pharmaceuticals: medicines that hit their targets but cause side effects because those targets are also found on healthy tissue. This on-target, off-tissue toxicity can be a significant dose-limiting factor for therapies.
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Ampersand created its map of human tissues with a platform technology called Address, Navigate, and Design (AND). Its map identifies and validates “addresses,” identifying markers found on disease targets but not on healthy tissue. Ampersand’s drugs are biologics. Targeted delivery of a therapy comes from linking the drug to a “localizer,” a molecule with an affinity to the particular biologic address. Ampersand bolstered its technology with the 2024 acquisition of AbCheck, a company that brought new antibody discovery capabilities. Gardner, who is also a CEO-partner at Flagship, said AND enables scientists to test various hypotheses, quickly yielding data about a drug’s potency and activity. These results inform future research.
“Those data, those results, become training datasets for the algorithms,” Gardner said. “So positive or negative data — super powerful for Ampersand because we can feed back our predictive algorithms.”
Ampersand isn’t disclosing specific diseases or targets of interest just yet. But as an example, Gardner pointed to inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Of the more than 60 approved medicines for Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, none of them addresses targets specific to the gut, he said. That lack of selectivity leads to side effects beyond the gastrointestinal system. Ampersand can explore gastrointestinal drug research because AND has great addresses in the gut as well as other tissues in the body, Gardner explained.
The two lead Ampersand programs are in development for immuno-oncology and immuno-inflammation. With the new capital, the company plans to advance both to the preclinical research that could support investigational new drug applications (INDs). Like other Flagship companies, developing Ampersand around a platform technology positions the startup to pursue partnerships with large pharmaceutical companies. Gardner said Ampersand talks to potential partners about their programs and targets, discussing ways the AND technology can help.
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So far, Ampersand has two discovery-stage collaborations, one with Pioneering Medicines, which is Flagship’s in-house drug discovery and development unit, and the other with Pfizer, part of a broader alliance with Flagship that started in 2023. Both discovery collaborations are focused on obesity. Gardner acknowledged the flurry of research and dealmaking activity in metabolic medicines, but he said Ampersand will not become an obesity drug company. That said, many of the patients eligible for GLP-1 drugs are not taking them. This drug class comes with gastrointestinal side effects that lead many patients to stop treatment. Gardner said a goal of these collaborations is to develop new obesity medicines that offer better potency and an improved side effect profile.
Eli Lilly has become a juggernaut in metabolic drugs with Mounjaro and Zepbound, each a blockbuster product. While Lilly is a new investor in Ampersand, Gardner declined to say whether there have also been discussions about a potential partnership. Nevertheless, the investment represents a vote of confidence in Ampersand. Gardner said Lilly made its investment decision after looking at the AND platform.
The new financing allows Ampersand to advance the startup’s wholly owned assets into IND-enabling studies later this year. Gardner declined to discuss plans beyond that. Decisions about the programs and future financing will depend on how the preclinical research pans out.
“Together with the two discovery partnerships in obesity, the platform, and our pipeline, I think this [financing] puts us in a strong position,” Gardner said. “For advancing, a lot of it will be data dependent.”
Photo: Larry Washburn, Getty Images