AAB Therapeutics
AAB Therapeutics · Babraham, Cambridge
Targeted intracellular delivery

Getting medicines inside the cells that need them.

AAB builds genetically programmable nanovesicles from engineered human cell membranes. One platform carries small molecules, RNA and biologics, and releases them into the cytosol of a chosen cell.

Nanovesicles Three swappable modules Prototype: mRNA drug delivered into CD19+ B cells
The problem

Cancer treatment is blunt because delivery is blunt.

Chemotherapy damages healthy tissue because it goes everywhere. Targeted agents often reach the right tissue but not the right compartment: most cargo carried by lipid nanoparticles is trapped and destroyed before it reaches the cytosol. The limiting step is rarely the drug. It is getting enough of it to the inside of the right cell, and nowhere else.

Where the opportunity is

The patients CAR-T leaves behind.

  • CD19 is well served. Autologous CAR-T is approved, and allogeneic and in vivo approaches are advancing.
  • Roughly 30% of patients do not respond. Antigen loss, poor T-cell fitness, a suppressive microenvironment.
  • After CAR-T failure there is no established standard of care.
  • A vehicle that delivers a different cargo to the same cells serves that group rather than competing with CAR-T.
  • The same platform can generate CAR-T in vivo by swapping the targeting module.
~30%

of patients do not respond to CD19 CAR-T, and have no established standard of care after it fails.

The commercial case

Targeted delivery improves drugs that already work.

  • RAS inhibitors are real progress in pancreatic cancer. In the phase 3 RASolute 302 trial, daraxonrasib roughly doubled median overall survival.
  • Grade 3 or higher treatment-related events still occurred in 44% of patients.
  • Both limits are delivery problems. Too little drug inside tumour cells. Too much everywhere else.
  • Our vesicles raise intracellular concentration at the tumour and reduce healthy-tissue exposure. We carry a partner's clinical-stage compound.

Median overall survival

Previously treated metastatic PDAC, RAS G12 population

Chemotherapy6.6 months
Daraxonrasib13.2 months
051015 months
Chemotherapy 6.6 months; daraxonrasib 13.2 months; hazard ratio 0.40. Source: RASolute 302, reported 2026.
The platform

Three modules, each swapped independently.

Nanovesicles are produced from engineered human cell membranes. Because the producing cells are genetically programmed, what sits on the vesicle surface is designed rather than inherited.

01 / TARGETING

Find the cell

Antibodies or ligands displayed on the surface, multiplexed when no single marker is specific enough. CD19 today; TROP2 with cMET or EGFR for solid tumours.

02 / CARGO

Carry the drug

Small molecules, RNA and biologics such as antibodies and enzymes. One platform, three classes, including agents too fragile or too toxic to give on their own.

03 / ENTRY

Get inside

Fusogenic proteins fuse the vesicle with the cell membrane and release cargo into the cytosol, bypassing the endosome that traps most lipid nanoparticle payloads.

Solid tumours

Harder targets, same three modules.

Pancreatic cancer is the case that defeats most delivery technologies. Five-year survival in the UK remains near 7%, and tumour cells sit behind a dense extracellular matrix that drugs struggle to cross.

  • No single surface marker identifies the tumour. Multiplexed targeting addresses more than one receptor, for example TROP2 with cMET or EGFR, so selectivity comes from the combination rather than from any one marker.
  • The drugs exist; the exposure is wrong. A mutation-specific KRAS inhibitor delivered inside tumour cells concentrates where it acts and spares healthy tissue.
  • The platform does not change. Targeting, cargo and entry are the same three modules used against B cells, pointed at a different problem.
Where we are

Platform stage, with a working prototype.

The platform was developed within the company. Earlier work was supported by SynbiCITE and by Accelerate@Babraham, both non-dilutive and neither holding any claim to the intellectual property.

NOW

Prototype

Vesicle production and purification, RNA loading, and proof of target engagement on CD19-positive B cells by flow cytometry.

NEXT 24 MONTHS

Disease-relevant models

Selectivity and efficacy in patient-derived models, accessed through academic collaboration, then toxicity and efficacy in vivo.

THEN

Partnering

A data and development package that pharmaceutical partners can evaluate, built around a defined cargo such as a KRAS or BTK inhibitor.

LONGER TERM

Clinic

Regulatory toxicology and an MHRA clinical trial authorisation for one in-house candidate, into a phase 1a/1b trial.

Team

Two founders. One platform, conceived together.

Dr Eline Koers

Chief Executive Officer, co-founder

Molecular biophysicist with over fifteen years across chemistry, structural biology and pharmacology. PhD in Chemistry from Utrecht University, where she pioneered dynamic nuclear polarisation for structural biology. Postdoctoral positions at AMOLF, Amsterdam, and the University of Nottingham. Twenty-four peer-reviewed papers and over 1,400 citations. Founded AAB and led it into Accelerate@Babraham with funded lab space. Secured a £400,000 MRC grant as co-investigator and a paid R&D collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim.

Prof. Dmitry Veprintsev

Chief Scientific Officer, co-founder

Chair in Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology at the University of Nottingham and a member of the COMPARE Centre. Over 100 peer-reviewed publications and three decades in receptor biophysics, structural biology and drug discovery. Pioneered live-cell biophysical assays, including BRET and kinetic ligand-binding methods. Founder of Z7 Biotech, a precision pharmacology CRO. Long-standing collaborations with Roche, AstraZeneca and Boehringer Ingelheim.

Contact

We are looking for partners.

If you hold a compound that cannot reach the inside of the right cell, that is the conversation we want. We are equally glad to hear from academic groups with disease-relevant models. We are raising pre-seed funding of £1M for in vivo proof of concept. SEIS and EIS eligible.

Eline Koers, CEO
Eline.Koers@aab-therapeutics.com
Dmitry Veprintsev, CSO
Dmitry.Veprintsev@aab-therapeutics.com
Registered office
AAB Therapeutics (AAB Research Ltd)
Meditrina Building 260
Babraham Research Campus
Cambridge CB22 3AT, UK

Newsletter

Occasional updates on the platform, data and partnerships. A few emails a year, nothing else.

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