A Johns Hopkins University spinout has opened a 9,000-square-foot lab in East Baltimore after raising $4.5 million earlier this year.
Infinity Bio is building out the lab with some of the money from the capital raise as the company aims to attract more customers with its business-to-business approach to pharmaceuticals. Instead of working on creating a cure for a specific disease, Infinity Bio provides a tool that lets other companies analyze the immune system to help them create drugs or learn more about diseases.
The company is one of the first tenants at BeMoreLabs, a recently renovated life sciences facility at 6200 Seaforth St. developed by East Capital Partners and Scheer Partners. Infinity Bio has attracted investment from PTX Capital and BlackBird BioVentures, a division of Ravens owner Steve Biscotti’s BlackBird Labs. Alongside the new lab, the remaining venture capital is being used for operating expenses. CEO Joy Nassif said the company became operational in September of last year and has already started acquiring customers.
Infinity Bio is built on the research co-founder Ben Larman conducted at Johns Hopkins University. The technology analyzes the antibodies in blood or clones of a person’s antibodies to examine the immune response to different diseases. The company uses different antigens — molecules that induce an immune response — to see how antibodies respond to different substances. Many products intended to treat autoimmune diseases, such as Crohn's disease, rely on these technologies to examine the immune response that causes the body to attack itself.
"We think of antibodies as the language of the immune system," Larman said.
The number of diagnosed autoimmune diseases has increased, leading to a boost in demand for new treatments. Larman said the technology allows companies to apply the massive advances in DNA science to better understand the immune system. The device can also help companies create diagnostic tests for allergies, Larman said.
PTX Capital Managing Partner Matt Hellauer first met Larman in 2022 at a Starbucks and the two spoke for seven months before launching Infinity Bio with Nassif in June. Hellauer was drawn to the breadth of applications for Infinity Bio’s technology, which applies to everything from veterinary medicine to more personalized genome-based treatments. Infinity Bio's ability to rapidly become operational, without having to go through a lengthy Food and Drug Administration approval process, also appealed to Hellauer.
“We were able to begin selling on day one after the launch of the company, that’s attractive to us as the fund,” Hellauer said.
