1.   Nature of Business

iBio, Inc. (the "Company" or “iBio”) is a preclinical stage biotechnology company that leverages the power of Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) for the development of precision antibodies. The Company’s proprietary technology stack is designed to minimize downstream development risks by employing AI-guided epitope-steering and monoclonal antibody (“mAb”) optimization.

In September 2022, the Company made a strategic pivot by acquiring substantially all of the assets of RubrYc Therapeutics, Inc. ("RubrYc"). This acquisition commenced the Company’s transition to an AI-enabled biotech company and led to the divestiture of its Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization (“CDMO”) business. This strategic decision allowed the Company to focus resources on the development of AI-powered precision antibodies, positioning iBio at the forefront of this exciting field.

One of the key features of the Company’s technology stack is the patented epitope-steering AI-engine. This advanced technology allows the Company to target specific regions of proteins with precision enabling the creation of antibodies highly specific to therapeutically relevant regions within large target proteins, potentially improving their efficacy and safety profile.  Another integral part of the Company’s technology stack is the machine learning (“ML”) based antibody-optimizing StableHu™ technology. When integrated with the Company's mammalian display technology, StableHu has demonstrated its ability to expedite the Lead Optimization process. This integration not only potentially reduces downstream risks but also streamlines the overall development process, making it faster, more efficient, and cost-effective. As a result, optimization can be achieved in less than four weeks.

The Company also developed the EngageTx™ platform, which provides an optimized next-generation CD3 T-cell engager antibody panel. This panel is characterized by a wide spectrum of potencies, Non-Human Primate (“NHP”) cross-reactivity, enhanced humanness of the antibodies, and a maintained tumor cell killing capacity, all while reducing cytokine release. These attributes are meticulously designed to fine-tune the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of the Company’s antibody products. By incorporating EngageTx into the Company’s own development initiatives, the Company’s internal pre-clinical pipeline reaps the benefits of the same cutting-edge technology extended to its potential partners.

The Company expanded its AI-powered technology stack with the launch of ShieldTx™, a patent-pending antibody masking technology designed to enable specific, highly targeted antibody delivery to diseased tissue without harming healthy tissue. By adding ShieldTx to the Company’s technology stack, iBio uniquely integrates antibody engineering and masking in one accelerated process to potentially overcome the challenges of complex targets, safety, and developability in next-generation antibody discovery and development.

iBio’s scientific team, composed of experienced AI/ML scientists and biopharmaceutical scientists, located side-by-side in its San Diego laboratory, possess the skills and capabilities to rapidly advance antibodies from concept to in vivo proof-of-concept (“POC’). This multidisciplinary expertise allows the Company to quickly translate scientific discoveries into potential therapeutic applications.

Artificial Intelligence in Antibody Discovery and Development

The potential of AI in antibody discovery is immense and is being increasingly recognized in the biopharmaceutical industry. The mAbs market has seen impressive growth in recent years, with mAbs increasingly the top-selling drugs in the United States. This success has driven the industry to seek innovative methods for refining and improving their antibody pipelines. AI and deep learning, which have already revolutionized small molecule drug design, are now making significant strides in the development and optimization of antibodies.

The Company is leveraging its AI-powered technology stack to enhance the success rate of identifying antibodies for challenging target proteins, expedite the process of antibody optimization, improve developability, and engineer finely calibrated bi-specifics. By continually refining the Company’s AI algorithms, incorporating new data sources, and developing robust experimental validation processes, iBio is paving the way for groundbreaking advancements in antibody design and drug discovery.

Strategy

The Company is a pioneering biotechnology company at the intersection of AI and biologics, committed to reshaping the landscape of discovery. The Company’s core mission is to harness the potential of AI and machine learning to unveil elusive biologics that stand out and have evaded other scientists. Through the Company’s innovative platform, it champions a culture of innovation by identifying novel targets, forging strategic collaborations to enhance efficiency, diversify pipelines, with the goal of accelerating preclinical processes.

Additionally, the Company’s groundbreaking EngageTx™ technology enables the Company to target bi-specific molecules. With the ability to navigate sequence diversity and promote Human-Cyno cross reactivity while mitigating cytokine release, the Company’s goal is to enhance agility and bolster preclinical safety assessments.

The Company’s strategic approach to fulfilling its mission is outlined as follows:

In essence, the Company is sculpting a future where cutting-edge AI-driven biotechnology propels the discovery of intricate biologics, fostering partnerships, accelerating innovation, and propelling the advancement of science.

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AI Drug Discovery Platform

Overview

The Company’s platform comprises five key components, each playing a crucial role in the discovery and optimization of precision antibodies.

The first layer, epitope engineering, leverages the patented AI-engine to target specific regions of proteins, allowing the Company to engineer antibodies with high specificity and efficacy. The second layer involves the proprietary antibody library, which is built on clinically validated frameworks and offers a rich diversity of human antibodies. The third layer of the technology stack is the antibody optimizing StableHu AI technology, coupled with mammalian display technology. Next, the Company uses its EngageTx T-cell engager platform to create bispecific antibodies. Finally, antibodies are transformed into conditionally activated antibodies by ShieldTx, the Company’s antibody masking technology.  Each layer of the tech stack is designed to work synergistically, enabling the Company to rapidly advance antibodies from concept to in vivo proof-of-concept (POC).

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The Company’s epitope steering technology is designed to address these issues by guiding antibodies exclusively against the desired regions of the target protein. By focusing on these specific regions, the Company can overcome the limitations of traditional methods and significantly improve the efficiency and effectiveness of its antibody discovery process.  The Company’s AI engine creates engineered epitopes, which are small embodiments of epitopes on the target protein. The engine is trained to match the epitope structure as closely as possible and refine the designs for greater stability and water solubility, which are critically important factors. The optimized engineered epitope is then used to identify antibodies from naïve or immunized libraries.

The fully human antibody library is built upon clinically validated, entirely human antibody frameworks. By leveraging public databases, the Company has extracted a diverse array of Complementarity-Determining Region (“CDR”) sequences. Subsequently, it has meticulously eliminated a range of sequence liabilities. Such careful curation process could potentially significantly reduce the development risk for antibodies identified from the Company’s library.

The Company’s proprietary StableHu technology is instrumental in the optimization process. StableHu is an AI-powered tool designed to predict a library of antibodies with fully human CDR variants based on an input antibody. This input can range from an early, unoptimized molecule to an approved drug. The model has been trained utilizing a set of over 1 billion human antibodies, progressively masking known amino acids within CDRs until the algorithm could predict the correct human sequence.

While phage display libraries are often used in antibody optimization due to their vast diversity, they can increase developability risks such as low expression, instability, or aggregation of antibodies. Mammalian display libraries, on the other hand, offer significantly improved developability but reduced diversity due to the smaller library size they can handle. StableHu overcomes this limitation by utilizing a machine learning algorithm generating focused library diversity within the capacity of mammalian display.

Mammalian display is a technology that presents antibodies on the surface of mammalian cells, allowing for the direct screening and selection of antibodies in a mammalian cell environment. This approach is advantageous as antibodies that express well on the mammalian cells used in the display are more likely to express well in the production cell line. Moreover, single-cell sorting of antibody-displaying cells allows rapid selection of desired antibodies based on multiple dimensions, such as potency, selectivity, and cross-species selectivity.

When paired with mammalian display technology, StableHu enables antibody optimization with fewer iterative optimization steps, lower immunogenicity risk, and improved developability.

The Company has used antibodies from an epitope steering campaign as well as a first-generation T-cell engager as input and utilized its StableHu technology to identify a next-generation CD3 antibody panel. The sequence diversity generated by StableHu led to an antibody panel with a wide range of potencies, which allows the Company to pair the panel with a wide variety of tumor-targeting antibodies.  Importantly, the Company was able to retain T-cell activation and tumor cell killing capacity with significantly reduced cytokine release. This reduction is believed to lower the risk of cytokine release syndrome. Additionally, the increased humanness of the predicted antibodies, thanks to the Company’s StableHu technology, has the ability to reduce the risk of immunogenicity.

Furthermore, the Company’s StableHu technology enabled it to engineer NHP cross-reactivity into EngageTx. This allows for advanced safety assessment in NHP ahead of clinical trials, providing another layer of safety assurance.

The Company has enhanced its proprietary technology with the introduction of ShieldTx, a patent-pending innovative antibody masking technique. ShieldTx leverages the Company's engineered epitope technology, which is utilized not only for the identification of antibodies against complex drug targets but also for concealing the antibodies' active sites. A significant hurdle in therapeutic antibody development is the expression of drug target on both healthy and diseased tissues, leading to adverse effects on non-targeted tissues. ShieldTx is designed to address this challenge by rendering antibodies inactive until they reach a specific environment unique to diseased tissues. Upon contact with this environment, the masking element is detached, activating the antibody. In the tumor microenvironment this is achieved by a highly expressed matrix metalloproteinase. This strategy aims to minimize or eliminate unintended effects on healthy tissues, thereby improving the safety profile and reducing the immunogenicity risks associated with bispecific antibodies.

Modalities

Epitope steering, an innovative AI-based technology the Company is pioneering, has the potential to positively impact various areas of medicine. Foremost in immuno-oncology, this technology is instrumental in creating targeted antibodies against specific cancer antigens, potentially enhancing the efficacy of treatments like checkpoint inhibitors and CAR-T therapies.

Similarly, in the battle against obesity and cardiometabolic disorders, epitope steering enables the discovery of therapeutics aimed at systemic secreted and cell-surface agents—key factors in these prevalent health issues. Its application could potentially lead to emerging treatments in cardiovascular diseases by targeting specific damaged tissues.

Beyond these areas, epitope steering may contribute to advancements in treating immune system diseases, neurological conditions, infectious diseases, and rare genetic disorders. In the specialized field of intratumoral immuno-oncology, there is potential for epitope steering to modify the tumor microenvironment, which could improve the outcomes of immune-stimulatory protein therapies. Additionally, the precision offered by epitope steering could play a role in the next generation of cancer vaccines, aiming to enhance T cell responses.

While the prospects are broad, epitope steering remains a hopeful strategy in the development of novel treatments, extending through pain management, and potentially even vaccine development for complex protein structures that have been difficult to target.

Partnerships

As noted above, one of the three pillars of value creation that structures the Company’s strategic business approach are strategic partnerships.  At the center of such pillar is the Company’s AI Discovery Platform.  

In June 2023, the Company entered into a research collaboration with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (“NIAID”), a component of the National Institutes of Health (“NIH”), to investigate the potential of the Company’s patented AI-driven epitope steering platform for the development of a vaccine for Lassa fever, a sometimes fatal viral disease endemic to parts of West Africa.  Under the collaboration, the Company worked with the NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center to determine whether using the Company’s AI Discovery Platform to steer immunity toward viral epitopes identified by the vaccine center’s researchers could offer advantages over other vaccine development approaches. The Company designed ten engineered epitopes for the collaboration, which were screened for binding to three known Lassa fever neutralizing antibodies, alongside the NIAID 's Vaccines Research Center’s internal epitope designs. Importantly, the Company’s engineered epitopes showed binding to the Lassa neutralizing antibodies and were

among the top-ranked hits regarding expression, an important consideration for cost-effective vaccine production.  While the NIAID elected not to proceed with joint optimization of the lead hits, the Company enhanced its discovery process as a result of the collaboration, incorporating diffusion-based generative AI models into its engineered epitope designs. The new models are already contributing to the Company’s pipeline development and are being used with current partners. 

During the first quarter FY 2024, the Company entered into a collaboration with a partner to license the use of the Company’s AI Discovery Platform to assist such partner with two targets of interest.  During the second quarter FY 2024, the Company entered into a collaboration with a large pharmaceutical company to assist such partner by using the Company’s patented AI-driven epitope steering platform to assist with one "hard to develop" molecule.  

In March 2024, the Company entered into a collaboration with AstralBio, Inc., (“AstralBio”).  As part of the collaboration, the Company has granted an exclusive license to its AI-powered technology to identify and engineer four (4) targets for the treatment of cardiometabolic disease, of which AstralBio may continue the pre-clinical development and deploy its drug development expertise to advance candidates to an Investigational New Drug (IND) application. The Company has the exclusive option to license three (3) cardiometabolic targets from AstralBio and will receive the rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize those targets upon exercise. As a result of this collaboration, iBio and AstralBio have agreed to initiate the development of a novel lead program focused on targeting the transforming growth factor beta (TGFb) superfamily for the treatment of muscle wasting and obesity.

The Company continues to seek out opportunities for future collaborations using the Company’s AI Discovery Platform.

Pipeline

The Company is currently in the process of building and advancing its pipeline. The focus of the Company’s pipeline is expanding beyond immuno-oncology, with the addition of obesity and cardiometrabolic diseases. By leveraging its technology stack, the pipeline is geared towards hard-to-drug targets and molecules offering differentiation. To reduce target risk and leverage competitor insights, one of the Company’s strategic approaches involves focusing on best-in-class therapies. The Company’s approach by targeting molecules that have already been partially validated allows the Company to benefit from the progress made by others in the field. A second strategy is dedicated to pioneering first-in-class therapies. Utilizing the Company’s AI Discovery Platform, it innovates by creating antibodies aimed at hard-to-drug targets, maximizing the potential of our cutting-edge technology.

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Therapeutics

Immuno-Oncology

IBIO-101

In August 2021, the Company signed a worldwide exclusive licensing agreement with RubrYc to develop and commercialize RTX-003 (now referred to as IBIO-101), an anti-CD25 mAb. In September 2022, the Company acquired exclusive ownership rights to IBIO-101.  IBIO-101 is a second-generation anti-CD25 mAb that has demonstrated in preclinical models of disease the ability to bind and deplete immunosuppressive regulatory T (“Treg”) cells to inhibit the growth of solid tumors.

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Targeting depletion of Treg cells to control tumors emerged as an area of interest in oncology over the past several years. Since Treg cells express interleukin-2 Rα (“IL-2Rα” or “CD25”), it was envisioned mAbs could be developed that bind CD25 and thereby trigger depletion by Natural Killer cells, resulting in stimulation of anti-tumor immunity.

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Unfortunately, while first-generation mAbs successfully bound CD25⁺ cells, they also interfered with interleukin-2 [“IL-2”] signaling to T effector (“Teff”) cells to activate their cancer cell killing effects. The result was a failure of first-gen anti-CD25 mAbs as cancer immunotherapies, since their favorable anti-Treg effects were negated by their unfavorable impact on Teff cells.

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In a humanized mouse disease model, IBIO-101, when used as a monotherapy, effectively demonstrated its mechanism of action by significantly enhancing the Treg/Teff ratio, resulting in the suppression of tumor growth. When paired with an anti-PD-1 checkpoint inhibitor in the same model, the combined treatment of IBIO-101 and anti-PD-1 exhibited superior tumor inhibition compared to either anti-PD-1 or IBIO-101 used independently.

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The Company continues to advance its IL-2 sparing anti-CD25 antibody, IBIO-101, and intends moving the program from IND-enabling stage to an IND filing during the calendar year 2025, subject to positive competitor data and funding availability.

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TROP-2 x CD3 Bispecific

The Company has identified highly potent, fully human TROP-2 (Trophoblast Cell Surface Antigen 2) monoclonal antibodies, which have been formatted into bispecific TROP-2 x CD3 molecules using its T-cell engager antibody panel, EngageTx. TROP-2 is highly expressed in multiple solid tumors, including breast, lung, colorectal, and pancreatic cancers and is closely linked to metastasis and tumor growth. TROP-2 antibody drug conjugates have been developed to deliver toxic payloads to these cancer cells but could risk harming healthy cells and cause adverse effects. The Company’s bispecific approach has the potential to increase the therapeutic window, while promoting a robust and long-lasting anti-tumor response. Combining the bispecific TROP-2 approach with immunotherapies like checkpoint inhibitors can potentially lead to improved clinical outcomes.

Using EngageTx, the Company’s lead TROP-2 x CD3 bispecific antibody was engineered to potently kill tumor cells while limiting the release of cytokines, like Interferon Gamma (“IFNg”), Interleukin 2 (IL-2) and Tumor Necrosis Factor Alpha (“TNFa”), all of which have the potential to cause cytokine release syndrome. When compared to a bispecific molecule engineered with the Company’s TROP-2 binding arm and a first generation CD3 engager, SP34, its lead TROP-2 x CD3 bispecific antibody showed a markedly reduced cytokine release profile, potentially indicating a decreased risk for cytokine release syndrome.

When tested in a humanized mouse model of squamous cell carcinoma, the Company’s lead TROP-2 x CD3 bi-specific antibody demonstrated a significant 36 percent reduction in tumor size within just 14 days after tumor implantation, and after only a single dose.

MUC16

MUC16 is a well-known cancer target often overexpressed in several types of solid tumors, including ovarian, lung, and pancreatic cancers. Specifically, MUC16 is a large extracellular protein expressed on more than 80% of ovarian tumors. Tumor cells can evade immune attack by shedding or glycosylating MUC16, making it difficult for traditional antibody therapies to effectively target and destroy the cancer cells.

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The Company’s patented epitope steering AI platform, its innovative approach to this challenge allows its new mAbs to bind to a specific region of MUC16 that is not shed or glycosylated, circumventing both tumor evasion mechanisms and potentially providing a powerful tool in the fight against cancer.  During its immunization and screening campaign, the Company identified several hits that specifically bound to the non-shed region of MUC16 while no binding to the shed fragment of MUC16 was observed.  During pre-clinical studies, the Company’s MUC16 molecule has demonstrated binding to MUC16 on OVCAR-3 ovarian cancer cells.  After engineering the leading MUC16 molecule with a fully human framework, the MUC16 molecule retained potent binding to the engineered epitope and maintained binding to human OVCAR-3 ovarian cancer cells. The Company has utilized its EngageTx platform to engineer MUC16 x CD3 bispecific antibodies and has further optimized the molecules to be double-masked on the MUC16 and the CD3 binding arms of the antibody.

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EGFRvIII

EGFRvIII is a specific variant of the EGFR protein, unique to tumor cells. Unlike the more common EGFR, EGFRvIII is not found in healthy cells, making it an attractive target for therapeutic interventions. This variant is most prominently associated with glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer and head and neck cancer but can also be present in certain cases of breast, lung, and ovarian cancers, among others. In the Company’s pursuit of innovative treatments, iBio is exploring antibody therapeutics that specifically target EGFRvIII, aiming to address these cancer types without affecting healthy cells.

Leveraging the Company’s patented AI-enabled epitope steering engine, it has specifically directed antibodies to target a unique epitope found exclusively on EGFRvIII, and not on the wildtype receptor, EGFR. Through this precision approach, iBio has designed tumor-specific molecules aimed at selectively targeting cancer cells while preserving healthy ones, potentially offering patients a more focused and safer therapeutic solution.

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The Company’s hit molecules have demonstrated strong binding to the tumor-specific EGFRvIII protein without targeting the wildtype EGFR.  Additionally, these molecules have effectively eliminated tumor cells, while sparing healthy ones, in in vitro cell killing tests.  The Company’s lead anti-EGFRvIII antibody was specially engineered to enhance its ability to attack cancer cells and has proven effective in a mouse model for head and neck cancer. In preclinical studies, its anti-EGFRvIII antibody demonstrated a 43 percent reduction in tumor growth compared to untreated animals.

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CCR8

GPCRs are one of the most successful therapeutic target classes, with approximately one-third of all approved drugs targeting these proteins. Compared to small molecule-based GPCR drugs, antibody-based GPCR therapeutics potentially offer several potential advantages, including superior selectivity, extended mechanisms of action, and longer half-life. However, GPCRs are intricate, multi-membrane spanning receptors, making clinically relevant regions difficult to identify and target.

The chemokine receptor CCR8 is a GPCR which is predominantly expressed on Tregs, which play a role in suppressing immune responses. In the context of cancer, Tregs can inhibit the body's natural immune response against tumor cells, promoting cancer progression. Anti-CCR8 antibodies are being explored as a therapeutic strategy to deplete these Tregs in the tumor environment. By targeting and reducing Tregs using anti-CCR8 antibodies, the hope is to enhance the body's immune response against cancer cells, offering a promising avenue for cancer treatment.

Aiming directly at CCR8 is believed to be a safer approach because it focuses on specific suppressive Treg cells in the tumor environment without affecting other immune cells and functions. It is important to make sure antibodies are fine-tuned to CCR8 and don't mistakenly target a similar receptor, CCR4. This is because CCR4 is found in many immune cells, and accidentally targeting it could potentially lead to unwanted side effects.

Using the Company’s unique AI-driven technology, it has successfully identified molecules targeting CCR8, addressing some of the hurdles often faced when creating therapies that target GPCR with antibodies. The Company’s specialized anti-CCR8 antibody has shown strong attachment to cells expressing CCR8 and effectively disrupted the CCR8 signaling process, resulting in the efficient elimination of Tregs derived from primary human immune cells. Notably, the Company’s CCR8-focused molecule did not attach to cells overproducing CCR4, highlighting its precision in targeting only CCR8.

The Company’s CCR8 antibody has proven effective in a mouse model for colon cancer. Preclinical studies show its anti-CCR8 molecule inhibited tumor growth and achieved a 22 percent reduction in tumor size compared to its pre-treatment dimensions.  The Company has specifically engineered the anti-CCR8 molecule as a high Antibody-Dependent Cellular Cytotoxicity (ADCC) antibody to enhance its ability to attack cancer cells.

Obesity and Cardiometabolic Diseases

Anti-Myostatin Antibody

Myostatin, also known as growth differentiation factor 8 (GDF8), is a transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β) family member that functions to limit skeletal muscle growth. Loss-of-function mutations in myostatin result in a pronounced increase in muscle mass in humans and various animals, while its overexpression leads to severe muscle atrophy. Myostatin also elicits effects on bone metabolism, as demonstrated by enhanced bone mineral density and bone regeneration in myostatin deficient mice.

The Company aims to use its AI-driven technology, specifically its StableHu AI technology and mammalian display to identify

molecules that are differentiated against competitor anti-myostatin antibodies. The discovery campaign will be designed to, among other goals, optimize potency, specificity, developability and half-life of novel molecules.

Anti-myostatin therapies are most validated for their role in enhancing muscle growth and differentiation in animals. However, they may also positively impact other tissues, such as bone and adipose tissue, either directly or indirectly. Such multifaceted benefits position anti-myostatin treatments as promising options for a spectrum of human conditions, including obesity, sarcopenia, and diabetes, among others.