“Hair Loss Drugs Like iPhones”: Absci Aims to Be the “Apple of Biotech”

U.S. AI biotech company Absci is aiming to become the “Apple of biotech,” with treatments for hair loss and endometriosis at the forefront.

According to U.S. biotech publication Fierce Biotech on the 2nd (local time), Absci CEO Sean McClain said the company could offer new drugs with periodically improved performance at the same price, much like Apple.

“Every few years, Apple releases an iPhone with new features at the same price,” McClain said. “We’re thinking about whether that kind of model could work at Absci, too.”

Absci’s lead candidate is ABS-201. It is currently in development for male pattern hair loss and endometriosis, with plans to potentially expand it into a product that combines it with GLP-1 obesity drugs to offer hair growth and weight loss in one treatment.

“Continuously providing consumers with upgraded drugs at the same price would create sustainable value over the long term,” McClain said.

The scientific basis for ABS-201 stems from research on the hormone prolactin conducted by Absci’s former chief innovation officer, Andreas Busch, while he was at Bayer. Prolactin is known primarily as a pituitary hormone associated with milk production.

According to McClain, when Busch’s team targeted prolactin in mice, their fur grew faster. In short-tailed macaques, which naturally go bald, six months of treatment resulted in a full head of hair.

Absci is currently conducting a Phase 1 clinical trial of ABS-201 for male pattern hair loss in Australia and plans to begin its first human trial for endometriosis later this year.

Chief Medical Officer Ransi Somaratne, who joined from Vertex Pharmaceuticals in March, said, “Everyone says they use AI to develop drugs, but no one has actually done it. Absci is the company that has taken molecules from the lab to the clinic the fastest.”

McClain founded Absci in 2011 in his parents’ basement. The company began with technology for efficiently producing antibodies using E. coli and incorporated generative AI into drug design after Google introduced the Transformer in 2018.

The company is also developing “Atlas,” an AI research collaborator, to accelerate drug development. McClain said early-stage pipeline programs were often discontinued in partnerships with pharmaceutical companies under the rationale of “portfolio review,” explaining that this was why Absci began developing its own drugs.

Absci aims to sell all its pipeline products, including ABS-201, directly to consumers through a direct-to-consumer (DTC) model. McClain said the GLP-1 boom has led consumers to take a more active role in managing their health.

Absci secured funding in June through a $100 million stock offering, including a $40 million investment from Eli Lilly. McClain said Lilly has no rights to Absci’s programs but is helping with clinical research on endometriosis, adding that “it was an investment with no strings attached.”

However, he ruled out the possibility of an acquisition offer from a large pharmaceutical company, saying, “We want to remain independent.” Absci is currently searching for a chief commercial officer.