Founded in 2023 by CRG researchers, the company employs proprietary technology to design drugs that act on allosteric sites of proteins, including those considered 'undruggable' or difficult therapeutic targets. The investment round was led by Asabys Partners, with participation from CDTI and the Institut Català de Finances (ICF).
Most current medicines target the active site of proteins. However, allosteric sites, located elsewhere on their structure, offer a way into proteins that have resisted conventional approaches, although they are hard to find and often discovered by chance.
ALLOX has developed a systematic method for finding these sites, stemming from research in Ben Lehner's lab at the CRG. There, Júlia Domingo, André Faure, and Pablo Baeza created techniques to introduce a large number of DNA mutations and measure their effects, testing up to a million protein variants in a single experiment.
Domingo, Faure, and Baeza now hold senior roles at ALLOX: Domingo is CEO, Faure is chief technology officer and co-inventor of the computational platform, and Baeza is chief discovery officer. Ben Lehner, ICREA Research Professor at the CRG, is a co-founder and the company's chief scientific adviser.
The company now combines these experiments with artificial intelligence to learn the biophysical rules governing protein function. The new funding will expand the platform's capabilities and move the company's programs towards the clinic. ALLOX operates a dual model, developing its own drug candidates while partnering with pharmaceutical companies, and plans a larger future funding round with international investors.
