Cambridge biotech Alchemab Therapeutics has extended its Series A round with a £25 million ($34 million) investment from the British Business Bank, which the company says is the state-owned lender’s largest backing of a life sciences company to date.
The money will help the clinical-stage firm build its drug pipeline and expand a proprietary antibody dataset that already sits among the largest of its kind, in a field where AI-driven antibody discovery has drawn growing investor interest.
Alchemab said the funding will let it grow that database from 500 million to more than a billion antibody sequences, and advance further clinical candidates into development. According to the company, the additional capital brings its total Series A to date to £109 million.
Founded in 2019, Alchemab hunts for what it calls autoprotective antibodies, the naturally occurring molecules found in people who show unusual resistance to hard-to-treat diseases.
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Its Resiliome platform integrates that antibody database with what the company describes as advanced AI and laboratory validation, in order to identify and characterise the antibodies that protect them.
According to the company, the platform uses AI-derived algorithms to find naturally occurring antibodies in people who resist a range of hard-to-treat diseases, then develops first-in-class drugs from them.
Alchemab describes the resulting database as the world’s largest antibody dataset drawn from disease-resilient individuals.
The approach has already produced a lead asset. ATLX-1282, described by the company as a first-in-class antibody therapeutic for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is in clinical development and has been licensed to Eli Lilly, a deal Alchemab says provides robust validation of the platform.
“We are delighted that British Business Bank has recognised the importance of enabling Alchemab to grow and thrive here in the UK,” said Dr Jane Osbourn, the company’s chief executive and co-founder.
She said the investment offered “further validation of the sustainable, long-term potential” of the firm’s drug discovery platform, and would help accelerate its pipeline of therapies for conditions with significant unmet need.
Dame Kate Bingham, managing partner at SV Health Investors and chair of Alchemab’s board, framed the round as a test of Britain’s ability to scale its own biotech companies.
“The UK life sciences sector has the expertise, creativity and commercial potential to build globally significant biotech companies, and Alchemab is determined to be one of them,” she said.
For the British Business Bank, the deal is a statement of intent. Charlotte Lawrence, managing director of direct equity, called it a “landmark” commitment and said Alchemab “sits at the cutting edge of UK scientific capability, integrating deep sequencing and lab-based validation to harness the body’s natural defences against disease”.
Carmine Circelli, senior investment director for life sciences at the bank, said the company had paired “one of the world’s largest proprietary antibody datasets with advanced AI” to build a platform with the potential to unlock new treatments.
The bank said its investment would help convert promising results into high-value medical discoveries.
The British Business Bank is the UK government’s economic development bank, set up in 2014 to help smaller firms raise the finance they need to start, scale, and stay in the country.
According to Alchemab, the investment is operated by British Patient Capital, the bank’s commercial subsidiary.
The company’s existing backers include SV Health Investors, along with its Dementia Discovery Fund, RA Capital Management, DCVC Bio, Eli Lilly, Lightstone Ventures, Ono Venture Investment, and Camford Partners. Alchemab says it has generated a broad pipeline of first- and best-in-class assets for hard-to-treat diseases.
The raise arrives as investors weigh how far artificial intelligence can reshape drug development, and as British biotechs court both domestic and international capital.
The wider UK story has featured multi-billion-pound bets on homegrown firms, of which Alchemab hopes to become another example.
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