Stabilising intractable targets through directed evolution.
At the core of Abilita is EMP™ — Enabled Membrane Protein technology — a directed-evolution approach that stabilises intractable receptors in defined active or inactive states. The result is a protein you can actually screen against, structure, and design drugs for.
Wild-type membrane proteins are dynamic, heterogeneous, and unstable.
Poor expression, low yields, and conformational heterogeneity are the main reasons multi-span membrane proteins fail in drug-discovery campaigns. An unstable target unfolds and degrades; a heterogeneous one elicits irrelevant antibodies. Past approaches — antigen fragmentation, domain swaps, stabilising reagents — have chipped at the problem without solving it.
EMP™ keeps the target in its physiological state — by design.
Directed evolution under selection pressure isolates beneficial mutations from a vast library of mostly neutral or deleterious ones. The result is an Enabled Membrane Protein: stabilised in an active or inactive state, suitable for screening, structural biology, and rational design across small molecule, antibody, and ADC modalities.
- 16MMP targets stabilised
- 5Internal discovery programs
- 2Cryo-EM structures determined
- 60%of approved drugs target MMPs
Across target classes and modalities.
EMP™ has produced first-in-class assets against historically intractable receptors — covering GPCRs, ion channels, and orphan targets, and spanning antibody, small-molecule, and bispecific modalities.
Discovered inverse-agonistic antibody — pharmacologically active mAbs with novel MoAs for GPCRs.
Discovered first blockers — high-affinity, specific, functional antibodies for ion channels.
Discovered active small molecules — unlocking true orphan GPCRs in obesity.
Proprietary datasets. Task-specific models.
AI/ML is embedded across the EMP™ discovery engine. Proprietary datasets generated by the platform feed task-specific models — including our internal StabLyzeGraph tool, co-developed with the Cosconati Lab — that guide design, ranking, and experimental planning. Lab in the loop, human in the loop.
- Stability profiles
- Active conformations
- Small-molecule R&D
- Antibody R&D
- Cryo-EM structures
- Biophysical simulations
- Hit analysis & ranking
- De novo hit design
- Optimisation
- Experimental planning