AMPLY Discovery is a UK biotech turning the regulatory genome — the part drug developers have largely ignored — into first-in-class RNA medicines for triple-negative breast cancer and high-grade serous ovarian cancer.
Discovered in silicon
Proven at the bench
Built for the clinic
We've just announced a strategic investment from Keeps Biomed (Keeps Biopharma, South Korea) and a partnership to explore oncology collaboration — plus we've appointed Oliver Rausch as AMPLY's new CSO.
These are pivotal moments in AMPLY Discovery's nascent development: our approach is moving from interesting towards partner-ready — mining multi-omic data (including non-coding regions of the genome) and backing it up with iterative wet-lab validation so our partners can make real go/no-go decisions. AI as the product isn't the focus for AMPLY — we believe that the techbio winners will eventually be the teams that can turn computation into credible, experimentally validated programmes with clear translational logic.
This key hire of Oliver and this partnership put AMPLY in an incredible position to eventually be one of those next winners.
Antibodies need an accessible protein. Small molecules usually need a suitable pocket. Two of the most important target classes in triple-negative breast and ovarian cancer offer neither.
Nothing for an antibody or a small molecule to bind.
And paralogues so alike that protein-level selectivity is brutal.
One is RNA. The other is made from RNA. An oligonucleotide reads sequence, not shape — so a single chemistry reaches both.
“Undruggable” is a property of the modality, not of the biology. RNA medicines only need sequence.
Each engine is a specialised tool that solves one part of the dark-genome problem — from finding the right target, to designing the molecule, to deciding what runs next at the bench.
Together, they form an integrated ML-discovery loop called TALON.
… in two world-class translational hubs. Continuously teaching the platform…
… so we can tackle critical diseases like Triple-Negative Breast Cancer and High-Grade Serous Ovarian Cancer.
Two long non-coding RNA targets and one master transcription factor, across triple-negative breast and high-grade serous ovarian cancer. Each gates on its own evidence — one programme failing does not take the others with it.
TNBC accounts for ~15–20% of breast cancers and lacks the three actionable receptors (HER2, ER, PR) that drive standard targeted therapies, leaving patients largely chemotherapy-dependent. The target is a long non-coding RNA — no protein, nothing for an antibody or small molecule to bind — reached instead by sequence. Functional signal established in our own hands across breast models.
Stage · In Vitro POCHigh-grade serous ovarian cancer recurs in the large majority of patients and platinum resistance is the point at which options run short. A second long non-coding RNA dependency, surfaced by the same twelve gates and carried by the same oligonucleotide chemistry. Validation underway across ovarian models.
Stage · In Vitro POCA lineage-defining transcription factor with no druggable pocket and paralogues close enough to make protein-level selectivity brutal — which is precisely why it has stayed out of reach. At the RNA level the problem changes shape: the transcript is sequence like any other. The dependency is externally validated in public functional-genomics data.
Stage · In Vitro POCTwo aerosolised antimicrobial peptide programmes — drug-resistant respiratory infection and cystic-fibrosis lung infection — are at in vivo stage. They are not where the company is pointed today, but they are where our formulation and tolerability experience was built, and they are the dataset FOLIO’s toxicity engine was benchmarked on.
Two further oncology targets are held in reserve behind the disclosed programmes.
AMPLY is led by operators with deep biotech, computational biology, and commercial experience — over 100 years combined across the founding management team, our scientific lead and the research bench.
25+ years across financial asset management, predictive marketing, and computational biology. PhD in bioinformatics from Aberystwyth (2018), PDRA at QUB. Architect of the TALON platform.
25+ years of industry experience spanning technology licensing, corporate finance, and business development. Co-founded AMPLY out of Queen's University Belfast.
Former CSO of STORM Therapeutics; prior leadership at Cellzome (now GSK), UCB Pharma, and the NIHR. PhD, Institute of Cancer Research, London. Career spent moving molecules from discovery to clinic.
Research scientist at the Future Medicines Institute, Queen's University Belfast, working across the oligonucleotide design and validation programmes.
Strategic consultant, interim executive, and non-executive across BioPharma. Provides AMPLY with senior commercial guidance and board-level governance.
From wet-lab co-investigators to academic founders, translational clinicians, and industry consultants — these are the people behind the data.
World-leading computational biologist at QUB. Expert in transcriptomic, metagenomic, metataxonomic and phylogenomic data, applying ecological and evolutionary principles to microbial communities.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Future Medicines Institute. PhD from QUB's Patrick G. Johnston Centre for Cancer Research, with publications in Molecular Pharmaceutics. Cancer pharmacology focus.
Researcher at the Patrick G. Johnston Centre for Cancer Research, QUB. Work focuses on death-domain receptor signalling, breast cancer biology, and the death-inducing signalling complex (DISC).
Synthetic drug synthesis and performance specialist with extensive hospital-based clinical background. Brings hands-on chemistry expertise to AMPLY's wet-lab and translational programmes.
Professor of Animal Science & Microbiology and Director of Research, School of Biological Sciences at QUB. Internationally recognised expert in microbial ecosystems and metagenomics; leads the global RUMEN Gateway consortium.
Voting member of the CLSI veterinary antimicrobial susceptibility standards subcommittee and the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC). Provides AMPLY with biomedical commercial-translation expertise.
Professor of Immunology and Deputy Director of the Institute for Infection & Immunity at City St George's. Coordinator of the EU-funded EMI-TB vaccine consortium; specialist in TB, dengue, Buruli ulcer, and SARS-CoV-2 vaccine and immunotherapy programmes.
Independent cancer industry consultant. Senior commercial and clinical-development advisor across oncology asset strategy, and AMPLY's lead on clinical and disease judgement.
AMPLY is seed-stage and building relationships now with Series A–aligned investors, pharma and biotech partners, and potential delivery collaborators — with an eye on accelerating platform-derived programmes toward key preclinical inflection points.
If your network includes any of these, let's connect today.
“The thing that I love about the deep ocean is that every time you dive, every single time, you see something you've never seen.
And every once in a while you're going to see something that nobody has ever seen.
James Cameron — filmmaker & deep-sea explorer