The startup develops therapeutic modalities that harness the innate immune system to create target-specific cytotoxic cells for treating immunological disorders. Their platform reduces the immunogenicity of therapeutic biologicals, enabling more effective immunotherapies for cancer, infectious diseases, and autoimmune diseases.
Funding
$2.8M raised to dateRaised to date based on public sources. This may differ from the amount the company actually raised and is based only on what is publicly available on the internet.
Founders
Product
Problem
Current therapeutic approaches for immunological disorders often fall short due to the immunogenicity of biological therapeutics, the limitations of targeting only the adaptive immune system, and the lack of curative options for autoimmune diseases, resulting in limited efficacy and undesirable side effects. Existing methods struggle to provide universally applicable and cost-effective solutions for diverse patient populations.
Solution
Equaly is developing a technology platform that harnesses the power of antigen-specific cells within the innate immune system to create targeted immunotherapies. By identifying and modulating specific protein motifs that activate natural killer T cells (NKT cells), Equaly's approach aims to enhance the immune system's ability to recognize and eliminate diseased cells, while also reducing the immunogenicity of therapeutic biologicals. This platform enables the development of novel vaccines for cancer and infectious diseases, the creation of non-immunogenic protein biologicals and viral vectors, and the development of curative treatments for chronic autoimmune diseases by suppressing inflammation and restoring tissue function. Equaly's technology offers a universally applicable, cost-effective, and easily testable approach to developing immunotherapies with potentially synergistic effects when combined with existing treatments.
Target Audience
Equaly's primary target audience includes pharmaceutical companies developing biologicals, vaccines, or gene therapies, as well as researchers and clinicians focused on cancer, infectious diseases, and autoimmune disorders seeking novel therapeutic approaches.
Features
- Identification and prediction of NKT-activating motifs in target proteins using proprietary algorithms
- Production of peptides based on identified sequences to regulate immune responses
- Protein engineering to alter immunogenicity and optimize therapeutic proteins and viral vectors
- In vitro testing of protein variants for NKT cell activation using human NKT cells obtained from peripheral blood
- Development of short peptide immunotherapeutics for tumors and intracellular infections
- Autoantigen-specific treatments to suppress inflammation in autoimmune diseases
- Biomarker discovery for patient follow-up based on NKT cell activation/memory
- Optimization of therapeutic proteins and viral vectors through motif identification, in vitro testing, and protein variant creation