AntlerA

Norrin/Wnt-mimetic for treatment of eye diseases enters clinical trials


AntlerA Wnt-agonist promotes lung regeneration (CELL)

About Us

We are a regenerative medicines company focused on developing novel protein therapeutics that function by modulating Wnt signaling and other developmental cellular signaling pathways with the goal to control tissue stem cells and unleash tissue repair and rejuvenation.

Our Science

Using our proprietary protein engineering platform we have developed potent antibody like molecules (ANTs) that activate specific Frizzed receptor complexes [2].

Wnt ligand
AntlerA agonist

Wnt ligand (A) or AntlerA agonist (ANT) (B) mediated activation of the WNT-signaling pathway

Publications:

  • 1. Rony Chidiac , Md. Abedin, Graham Macleod , Andy Yang, Pierre E Thibeault, Levi L Blazer, Jarrett J Adams, Lingling Zhang, Heidi Roehrich, Ha-Neul Jo, Somasekar Seshagiri, Sachdev S Sidhu , Harald J Junge, and Stephane Angers.
    A Norrin/Wnt surrogate antibody stimulates endothelial cell barrier function and rescues retinopathy. EMBO Mol Med (2021) e13977. https://www.embopress.org/doi/10.15252/emmm.202113977
  • 2. Yuyong Tao, Monika Mis, Levi Blazer, Mart Ustav Jr, Zachary Steinhart, Rony Chidiac, Elli Kubarakos, Siobhan O’Brien, Xiaomei Wang, Nick Jarvik, Nish Patel, Jarrett J. Adams, Jason Moffat, Stephane Angers and Sachdev S. Sidhu.
    Tailored tetravalent antibodies potently and specifically activate Wnt/Frizzled pathways in cells, organoids and mice eLIFE August 27, 2019 https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.46134
  • 3. Ahmad N. Nabhan, Joshua D. Webster, Jarret J. Adams, Levi Blazer, Christine Everrett, Celine Eidenschenk, Alexander Arlantico, Isabel Fleming, Hans D. Brightbill, Paul J. Wolters, Zora Modrusan, Somesekar Seshagiri, Stephane Angers, Sachdev S. Sidhu, Kim Newton, Joseph R. Arron 13, Vishva M. Dixit 14.
    Targeted alveolar regeneration with Frizzled-specific agonists. CELL 2023. Open Access Published June 14, 2023 https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(23)00541-X

Team

Management

Somasekar Seshagiri

Somasekar Seshagiri

CEO/CSO

Dr. Seshagiri had a very successful 21 years tenure at Genentech, where he most recently served as an Associate Director and Staff Scientist. There he established a state-of-the-art genomics laboratory, conducted research in cancer and cell signaling areas and participated in drug development. He has authored/co-authored over eighty papers that included key publications in top tier journals such as Nature, Science, Cancer Cell and Nature Genetics.

Austin Gurney

Austin Gurney

Head Business Development & Board Member

Dr. Gurney has over 30+ years of antibody drug development experience. After his successful tenure at Genentech he served as CSO at OncoMed where he developed the first Wnt-pathway antibody and took it to human trials.

Mahesh Pratapneni

Mahesh Pratapneni

Board Member
Founder & Managing Partner
Emerge Life Sciences

Mahesh Pratapneni is a visionary investor, founder, and strategist in the India life sciences and technology sectors. He is known for building outstanding global teams, differentiated strategies, and successful exits. He currently serves as Executive Director of MedGenome and is on the boards of AgriGenome Labs, Saksin Life Sciences and AntlerA, Theragen, and Emerge Biologics. Mahesh earned his undergraduate degree in electronics and communications from IIT Madras, and his MBA from IIM Calcutta.

Scientific Founders

Dr. Dev Sidhu

Sachdev Sidhu, Ph.D

Dr. Sachdev Sidhu is a Professor in the Donnelly Centre, the Department of Molecular Genetics, and the Institute for Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. His research interest lies in the application of protein engineering to the development of new therapeutics.

Prior to joining the University of Toronto in April 2008, he spent a decade as a principal investigator in the Department of Protein Engineering at Genentech, Inc., where he led the development of phage-displayed synthetic antibody libraries. His laboratory has optimized a high throughput pipeline to develop exquisitely specific, high affinity synthetic antibodies using phage display screening and structure-guided library construction. This work has led to the generation of thousands of therapeutic-grade antibodies against virtually any target, including many relevant to human diseases such as cancer, inflammation and infectious diseases.

Dr. Sidhu holds a B.Sc and a Ph.D from Simon Fraser University and completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Genentech.

Dr. Stephane Angers

Stephane Angers, Ph.D

Professor Stephane Angers is the Director of the Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research at the University of Toronto where he holds the Charles H. Best Chair of Medical Research. He is a Professor in the Faculties of Pharmacy and Medicine at the University of Toronto. His research focuses on understanding cellular signaling mechanisms with a specific interest on developmental signaling pathways. Dr. Angers is internationally recognized for his use of functional genomic and proteomic approaches to study the mechanisms of intracellular signaling activated by growth factors and their receptors. A major focus of his team is the study of the Wnt family of secreted growth factors and the signaling mechanisms they govern in stem and progenitor cells during normal tissue homeostasis, degenerative diseases and cancer. He is the recipient of numerous awards and honors such as the Canadian Society for Pharmaceutical Sciences, GSK Award and the Canada Research Chair in Functional Architecture of Signal transduction.

Dr. Angers holds a B.Sc from McGill University, a Ph.D from the Université de Montréal and completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the University of Washington.

Pipeline

Antlera Pipeline

News

  • Jun 15th, 2023 - AntlerA Norrin/Wnt-agonist ANT antibody enters clinical trials through a strategic partnership with EyeBio

    AntlerA Norrin/Wnt-agonist antibody through a strategic partnership with EyeBio enters clinical trials for treatment of retinopathies... Read more

  • Jun 9th, 2021 - AntlerA antibody drug for treatment of vascular retinopathies

    AntlerA has applied its next generation programmable ANT platform to develop therapeutics for treating retinopathies... Read more

  • Aug 27th, 2019 - AntlerA Therapeutics, a University of Toronto startup, is transforming the science and development of regenerative medicine therapies

    AntlerA is leveraging a precision-engineered programmable Wnt pathway agonist platform to develop drugs that address large unmet needs in the regenerative medicine area... Read more

  • Aug 27th, 2019 - U of T researchers engineer antibodies that unlock body’s regenerative potential

    Stephane Angers (left) and Sachdev Sidhu: Their teams have engineered antibodies that can activate tissue repair and will be developed into regenerative medicine treatments... Read more

Contact

Email: info@antlera.com | Phone: +1 650 268 5874
Toronto | San Franscisco