For anyone watching the GLP-1 headlines in recent years, it’s not hard to see which way the wind is blowing in biopharma R&D.
That a company like iBio—whose original plant-based contract manufacturing plans were dampened by the downfall of similarly-positioned Medicago several years back—would follow the lead on obesity and cardiometabolic health in its bid to survive comes as little surprise, then.
Still, upon reaching the status of clinical-stage biotech this month, iBio leadership feels vindicated that the artificial intelligence-powered discovery platform it picked up from RubrYc in 2022 could help it carve out a niche of its own in the buzzy field.
Nevertheless, the company faces a long road ahead if it hopes to stand out in the crowded obesity development scene, and iBio’s significant change in course in recent years could heap further scrutiny on the biotech’s performance as it attempts to prove its obesity R&D bona fides.
In getting its hands on “substantially all of the assets” of RubrYc Therapeutics in September of 2022, iBio came into possession of its partner’s drug discovery platform, which leverages artificial intelligence to design 3D models of epitopes—the part of an antigen recognized by the body’s immune system—with the goal to deliver better antibody drug candidates.
The platform’s use of predictive algorithms makes it well positioned versus others to tee up discovery of antibodies for tough-to-drug disease targets, iBio contended at the time.
By optimizing the so-called antibody-antigen equation through a mix of epitope-steering technology, mammalian display and human-developable libraries, iBio may be uniquely positioned to tackle some of the major unmet needs that remain in the treatment of obesity and cardiometabolic health, CEO and chief scientist Martin Brenner recently told Fierce during an interview in conjunction with the ADA 2026 Scientific Sessions in New Orleans.
The platform gives iBio an edge by touching on “both sides of the equation” of drug discovery, the CEO said, looking at “not only the antibodies but also the target.”
On drug targets, the tech helps fashion “soluble representations” of proteins of interest, he explained.
“Often, these target proteins are integrated in the cell membrane, and that makes it really hard to make them soluble for screening purposes,” he said. The company’s platform, however, leverages partial diffusion—which Brenner referred to as “one of the more recent developments in predictive AI”—to create what iBio is referring to as engineered epitopes. Those engineered epitopes are then validated through tried and tested pharmacologic methods.
“We still confirm this with traditional biology,” the CEO caveated.
iBio is also aiming artificial intelligence at the antibody piece of the equation, with Brenner arguing that the company is distinguishing itself from other discovery outfits by bridging both in silico models—where it’s often easier to find antibodies against tough-to-drug targets, but which come with potential developability caveats—with samples from a naïve human library.
“We cross these two paths over multiple times,” Brenner explained. “So, basically, the naïve library informs the in-silico design, and the in-silico design lets us look more deeply into the naïve library.”
The AI-powered screening technology iBio is utilizing is key, according to the CEO, who admitted that while “our activin E antibody is likely in a few other libraries on this planet, the question is, ‘do you find it’” without his company’s parallel approach.
Dubbed IBO-610, the candidate Brenner was referring to is a monoclonal antibody designed to block (PDF) Activin E designed to drive fat loss and weight management after GLP-1 discontinuation, according to a company presentation. It’s been engineered for an extended half-life, with the goal to enable infrequent dosing and potentially help bridge some of the adherence challenges for other chronic weight management meds on the market today.
Meanwhile, as the company’s lead obesity asset IBIO-600—a long-acting myostatin antibody—gets off the races in a phase 1 trial in obesity, the biotech is now on the hunt for a clinical development lead, Brenner added. And a $50 million public offering last summer lends further credence to the confidence in iBio’s new cardiometabolic mission.
iBio’s myostatin antibody is also targeting less frequent dosing—out to potentially two to four times a year, by the company’s estimation—with the added potential benefit that blocking myostatin signaling may support lean mass preservation and better body composition. In turn, the drug could potentially be used alongside current GLP-1 therapies, iBio notes on its online R&D page.
The loss of muscle and other lean mass in addition to more harmful visceral fat on GLP-1-based regimens has been raised as a potential point of concern among the current class of weight loss meds, and it forms an increasing area of interest in the development of next-generation drugs for obesity.
Pulling off a pivot
Roughly a decade ago, iBio was one of several biotechs attempting to make a go of plant-based manufacturing for biopharmaceuticals. In 2016, the company formed a joint venture with affiliates of Eastern Capital Limited to beef up a new contract manufacturing organization for the large-scale production of biologics using this approach.
But the winds started to change fast early in the 2020s, and Medicago—which won approval in Canada for a COVID-19 vaccine using its tobacco-plant-as-bioreactor platform—saw its last remaining shareholder, Mitsubishi Chemical Group, walk away in early 2023.
If Medicago—which had substantial support and interest—couldn’t succeed on that front, “how could little iBio do it,” Felipe Duran, the company’s chief financial officer, told Fierce when reflecting on the company’s pivot.
After acquiring the RubrYc platform in 2022, iBio initially remained focused on oncology, at the time signing onto a research agreement with Eli Lilly around a hard-to-drug target. Lilly had spent years working on the target, but with iBio’s new platform, “in eight months we were able to get further than they had ever gotten,” Duran suggested.
Keeping that positive momentum rolling, iBio in early 2024 sold a preclinical PD-1 agonist stemming from its platform to Japan’s Otsuka Pharmaceutical, securing $1 million upfront and up to $52.5 million in potential additional payments.
By that point, the company had reached a market cap of $3 million and was beginning to “gain attention,” by Duran’s reckoning. It was then that iBio was approached by Patrick Crutcher’s AstralBio on a mission to design a better anti-myostatin drug, penning a discovery pact for four cardiometabolic targets that will serve as what iBio hopes to be its serendipitous first foray into the indication.
“We’re not going into this blind,” Brenner said of the company’s recent evolution into clinical-stage company. He pointed to the consultants that the company has leaned on heavily as it has operated as a smaller outfit, adding that he doesn’t want to lose their expertise anytime soon.
“But since we’re now planning to move multiple programs into clinical development, we need to bring the key positions in-house,” he said, noting that it’s important to recruit a workforce with “skin in the game.”
“It’s really important to find the right people,” Brenner said, “and obviously we’re currently hunting for a very senior clinical development person, or CMO, but we also want to retain the culture we have built.”
Brenner pointed to the strength of the company’s burgeoning pipeline in light of the fact that iBio at the time of the interview had just 24 employees.
“We’re extremely efficient, and every single person in the company believes and trusts in our mission and vision, and trusts that our technology can deliver,” he said.
As for how that search for a clinical development lead is going, “we are on a good path,” according to Brenner, who noted that the company is reviewing “multiple” promising candidates who he figures can bridge deep clinical development know-how with the ability to mesh with iBio’s “startup vibe.”
“We all wear multiple hats and we’re all knee-deep in decision-making in all areas of the company, and I think that’s what a lot of people really like about us,” he said.