Avenue Biosciences Raises $5.7M To Expand Protein Engineering Platform

The technology leverages a library of thousands of natural and engineered signal peptides to assess protein biogenesis efficiency in the secretory pathway, which handles folding, modification, and secretion of therapeutic proteins.

“The secretory pathway is one of the remaining black boxes in therapeutic protein production. Despite its importance, the current industry standard relies heavily on a decades-old playbook, testing only a small set of safe signal peptides rather than exploring thousands of sequence variants. Our technology makes the increasingly complex proteins, such as AI-designed proteins or multispecifics, more manufacturable, improving access to lifesaving therapies,” comments Tero-Pekka Alastalo, CEO and co-founder of Avenue Biosciences.

Read Also - Tallinn Startup Flashka Secures €1M Pre-Seed Funding

Signal peptides offer a significant untapped potential in biotechnology, playing a crucial role in determining protein production efficiency and quality within cells.

“Novel protein-based biologics under development for example in cancer, rare diseases or immunology, are becoming increasingly targeted and effective, performing several functions with one therapeutic component: Bring immune cells to the right place, activate them, and recognize disease cells more specifically. However, this adds complexity to the protein structure, adding manufacturing cost, or in the worst case, preventing the development completely,” comments COO, co-founder and Helsinki laboratory site lead Katja Rosti.

Avenue Biosciences’ approach removes signal peptides from mature proteins, keeping targets unchanged, making it ideal for biosimilar production. Its technology generates industry-first data on how peptides affect protein targets, lowering biologics costs and transforming therapeutic protein manufacturing with AI.

The new financing brings total funding since 2024 to $8.7M, building on research from the University of Helsinki and Ville Paavilainen’s lab.

Avenue Biosciences

Avenue Biosciences is a transatlantic biotech company focused on accelerating protein biologics development ensuring life-saving therapies reach patients. Its proprietary platform combines biology and machine learning to enhance protein production built on years of research at the University of Helsinki.