Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

A new California startup announced itself Tuesday with $25 million in seed funding, some major scientific backers, and the hope of helping biopharma companies make better antibody-drug conjugates and other biologics. Ridge Biotechnologies says it will use in-house machine learning tools to design enzymes that can be used in a variety of drug development functions. The startup, less than two years old, is being advised by big academic names who have also helped launch many biotechs, including Nobel laureate Carolyn Bertozzi and MIT professor Sangeeta Bhatia , who sits on Vertex’s board and is the co-founder of Satellite Bio . Bertozzi helped pioneer the bioorthogonal chemistry field and has helped form other ADC biotechs, including Firefly Bio . Ridge Bio was incubated at Sutter Hill Ventures, a more than half-century-old venture capital firm that has historically played more in tech, including as one of the original funders of Nvidia. Its investments in life sciences include the cancer testing company Grail and Integrated Biosciences , another AI drug developer. Like Integrated, Ridge is led by a young entrepreneur. Weston Kightlinger previously co-founded the manufacturing startup SwiftScale Biologics, which synthesizes proteins without cell-based growth processes. ARCH Venture Partners’ massive CDMO bet, National Resilience, bought SwiftScale in 2021. Kightlinger helped lead one of Resilience’s sites for a few years before becoming an entrepreneur-in-residence at Sutter Hill. The firm’s Palo Alto offices are “a couple hundred yards” away from Bertozzi’s post at Stanford, he told Endpoints News in an interview. At one point during his time there, Kightlinger had a running document of about 20 different company ideas, he said. That included real-time monitoring of diseases and expanding the reach of continuous glucose monitors to other areas, he said. But he came back to the cell-free protein manufacturing that had intrigued him at SwiftScale. Many biologics, such as ADCs, siRNAs and gene therapies, have undertaken “increasing molecular complexity,” Kightlinger said. He co-founded his new company with Stanford bioengineering professor Mike Jewett. Kightlinger did his PhD work at Northwestern when Jewett was a professor at the Chicago-area research university. ADCs have been around for a few decades, but gained momentum in the last several years, notably with Pfizer’s $43 billion Seagen buyout. But dealmaking has cooled in 2025. Ridge’s tools can help make “homogenous antibody-drug conjugates with very stable bonds that lessen off-target payload release,” Kightlinger said, helping avoid toxicities that come with chemotherapies involved in ADCs. “We can actually take ADCs, even off-the-shelf, approved ones, and make dual-payload systems,” Kightlinger said. The startup has a partnership with an unnamed ADC-focused biotech to help deliver the treatment’s payloads to tumor tissue without hitting healthy cells, Ridge said. The startup also claims it could apply its technology and cell-free manufacturing work to other areas, including radiopharmaceuticals, targeted nucleic acid delivery and in vivo CAR-T.

9月2日，Enlaza Therapeutics 宣布与 Vertex Pharmaceuticals 达成超过20亿美元的合作，利用 Enlaza 专有的 War-Lock 技术平台开发小型药物偶联物和 T 细胞接合剂，用于治疗某些自身免疫性疾病，或改进 Vertex 首个 CRISPR/Cas9 基因编辑疗法 Casgevy 的预处理方案。 Enlaza用于设计共价生物制剂的War-Lock 平台 by TiPLab 木桃 Enlaza Therapeutics 是共价生物制剂领域的先驱。公司专有的 War-Lock 平台利用领先的合成生物学技术，实现由药物结合驱动的位点特异性共价偶联。 War-Lock 平台将专有的非天然氨基酸引入蛋白质药物，使药物与其靶标之间形成共价键（即，弹头）。这些药物能够在体内快速分布，不可逆地锁定疾病相关靶点，并在患病组织中实现高暴露率，从而最大限度地降低全身暴露且保持药物的靶向占据。而基于可逆结合的标准蛋白质疗法则通常需要持续给药以维持预期疗效。 War-Locks在血液循环中处于潜伏状态，不发生反应。只有与特定靶点结合时，其化学反应才会被激活，迅速在药物和靶点之间形成共价键。 几乎所有的共价药物都是小分子，包括为人熟知的阿司匹林/奥美拉唑和近年来受到广泛关注的BTK抑制剂ibrutinib（伊布替尼，AbbVie）。但是小分子容易发生脱靶，而生物制剂则在靶标特异性上更具备优势，将共价键引入蛋白质类药物，可以兼顾特异性和疗效/安全性。 Enlaza 的 War-Lock 平台来自加州大学旧金山分校化学生物学家 Lei Wang 实验室的技术，并从加州大学旧金山分校获得独家授权。 Enlaza 的方法依赖于非天然氨基酸（unnatural amino acid，UAA）—氟硫酸盐-L-酪氨酸（FSY），可以在合成过程中插入蛋白质药物中。当药物接近靶标时，靶标上的亲核试剂（氨基酸残基）会与氟硫酸盐-L-酪氨酸形成共价键。 共价蛋白质药物作用过程，参见：Lei Wang et al, 10.1016/j.cell.2020.05.028 以Lei Wang为发明的专利涉及非天然氨基酸以及包含非天然氨基酸的蛋白质、抗体CDR或缀合物（PCT/US2022/026708、PCT/US2022/018381、PCT/US2023/078455和PCT/US2024/059463），主要限定非天然氨基酸部分的结构通式。 Enlaza的专利主要涉及不同的药物形式，比如：家族PCT/US2023/067512涉及多特异性缀合物（比如：多特异性抗体），包含具有至少一个UAA的第一靶向域和第二靶向域。家族PCT/US2022/082277涉及包含靶向结构域和有效载荷的缀合物，其中靶向结构域包含至少一个能够与靶标形成共价键的UAA残基。 * 以上文字仅为促进讨论与交流，不构成法律意见或咨询建议。 © 作为一家专业服务公司，TiPLab坚持原创的系统的研究，注重系统性知识积累与专业影响力。欢迎读者个人分享转发，各专业平台媒体如需转载请联系TiPLab获得授权。  TiPLab提供基于研究的核心知识产权服务 FTO：技术商业化实施的侵权风险防范 TiPLab通过对细分技术领域内核心技术和重要专利的长期研究，结合自身在数据检索和分析方面的专长，致力于帮助客户深入了解、积极应对潜在的专利侵权风险。 Due Diligence：商业活动中的知识产权尽职调查 在企业许可交易、融资、并购、上市等过程中，TiPLab帮助企业和投资方了解目标技术/产品的专利保护强度及产品商业化过程中潜在的专利侵权风险，从而为商业谈判和决策提供支持依据。 Patenting：全球范围内高价值专利资产的创设 TiPLab熟知全球主要国家和地区的法律实践和细分领域内的前沿技术进展情况，通过前瞻性的专利布局策略，帮助客户通过创设有价值的专利资产而获取、保持和巩固独特的竞争优势。

Lawsuit filed against Lonza, the Dutch manufacturer of the world's first CRISPR-based genome editing therapy, CASGEVY Second European action following UK litigation, enforcing ToolGen's rights to fundamental CRISPR-Cas9 RNP technology SEOUL, South Korea, Sept. 8, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- ToolGen, Inc. (KOSDAQ: 199800), a global leader in genome editing technology, today announced that it has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Lonza Netherlands B.V., a contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) that produces CASGEVY, the world's first approved CRISPR-based gene therapy. The case was filed with the District Court of The Hague. The lawsuit charges that Lonza, in its production of Vertex's CASGEVY at its Dutch facility, infringes ToolGen's European patent (EP 4 357 457) covering CRISPR-Cas9 RNP technology. CASGEVY, developed by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and CRISPR Therapeutics, is the world's first gene-editing therapy approved for sickle cell disease and beta-thalassemia. It has been authorized in the United Kingdom, United States, and European Union. Under a long-term supply agreement with Vertex, Lonza manufactures CASGEVY at its Netherlands site. This Dutch action follows ToolGen's UK lawsuit filed in April against parties involved in CASGEVY's sale and production. By targeting a key European production hub, ToolGen aims to reaffirm the importance of its foundational CRISPR-Cas9 RNP technology and strengthen protection of its intellectual property rights. "Behind the successful commercialization of CASGEVY lies the pivotal role of ToolGen's proprietary CRISPR-Cas9 RNP platform," said Jong Sang Ryu, CEO of ToolGen. "Toolgen filed this lawsuit because it cannot accept the unauthorized use of its proprietary technology. The lawsuit is not intended to restrict patient access to life-changing therapies, but to secure fair recognition and just compensation for the value of ToolGen's innovations. We remain open to exploring an amicable resolution of the dispute, ultimately fostering a sustainable and mutually beneficial ecosystem." Logo - WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM? 440k+ Newsrooms & Influencers 9k+ Digital Media Outlets 270k+ Journalists Opted In GET STARTED