AbSci secures $15.4M Series D funding to accelerate growth and scale disruptive protein printing technology

AbSci, a biopharma startup and developer of cutting-edge protein production technologies, has closed $10.4M Series D financing for expansion of AbSci facilities and team in order to meet commercial demand for AbSci’s technology. The round was led by KBI Biopharma and JSR Life Sciences, with participation from existing investors Phoenix Venture Partners, Oregon Venture Fund, WRF Capital, and Columbia Ventures Corporation also participated in the financing. The funding also includes $5M in term debt.

In addition to the funding, AbSci also announced it has entered into an exclusive co-marketing agreement with KBI Biopharma to jointly market and promote each other’s technologies, products, and services. Under the agreement, KBI Biopharma, a leading biopharmaceutical CDMO providing fully integrated biopharmaceutical development and manufacturing services, has the exclusive right to market AbSci’s Protein Printing™ technology worldwide and is AbSci’s preferred CDMO for industrial scale-up of biologics developed using AbSci technology. This agreement will give partners a seamless path from cell line development to process optimization/scale up and cGMP manufacturing.

Founded in 2011 by Sean McClain, the Vancouver, Washington-based AbSci’s technology enables dramatic reductions in the cost of producing novel and existing biologics, acceleration of drug discovery timelines, and increased efficiency and flexibility throughout the manufacturing process. The company is committed to reducing costs in the biopharmaceutical industry.

AbSci’s Protein Printing™ technology combines the power of E. coli SoluPro® with a cutting-edge synthetic biology platform for generation of high-diversity strain libraries and high-throughput screening assays to deliver unprecedented titers of complex biotherapeutic proteins with superior product quality. AbSci continues to accelerate its partnerships with industry-leading companies due to its track record providing enabling and scalable manufacturing solutions for next-generation biotherapeutics. In 2019, AbSci increased its revenue by over 800%. The Series D financing will support the company’s continued aggressive growth by increasing capacity to meet growing demand from the biopharma industry for rapid, ultra-high yield and quality production of next-generation biotherapeutics.

“We are thrilled to partner with KBI Biopharma, a premier CDMO and technology leader. This partnership allows us to better serve our partners by giving them rapid and direct line of sight to GMP manufacturing,” said Sean McClain, Founder and CEO of AbSci. “AbSci has developed a reputation for solving complex manufacturing hurdles that have stymied next-generation biotherapeutics. These molecules have proven to be extremely difficult or impossible to produce in other protein expression platforms. AbSci’s Protein Printing™ technology is uniquely suited to solve this manufacturing issue and enables pharma and biotech companies to get these truly groundbreaking therapies to the market and improve patient outcomes.”

CommTim Kelly, President and CEO of KBI Biopharma stated, “We believe that AbSci’s microbial expression technology is truly disruptive, and we are excited to deliver unique solutions to the biopharmaceutical industry via our partnership. The next generation of biologics will be enabled only though innovation and product development expertise. Our world class team and FDA and EMA-approved clinical and commercial microbial manufacturing facilities in Boulder, CO are ideally suited to translate AbSci’s technology into new medicines for patients in need.”