Orbit Discovery is a technology company.
Orbit Discovery has raised $17.0M across 2 funding rounds.
Key people at Orbit Discovery.
Orbit Discovery has raised $17.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Key people at Orbit Discovery.
Orbit Discovery has raised $17.0M in total across 2 funding rounds.
Orbit Discovery's investors include Borealis Ventures, Oxford Science Enterprises, SV Health Investors.
Orbit Discovery is a biotech company specializing in peptide drug discovery, spun out from the University of Oxford in 2015. It develops a proprietary bead-based peptide synthesis and functional screening platform that generates libraries of over 1 billion natural and non-natural peptides to identify leads for difficult targets like G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) and T-cell receptors (TCRs).[1][2][3] The platform serves pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies by providing early-stage lead discovery services, addressing challenges in screening for agonists, antagonists, and targeted therapies in areas such as oncology, autoimmune, metabolic, cardiovascular, and infectious diseases.[2][3][6] Orbit solves the limitation of traditional methods like phage or mRNA display by enabling high-throughput affinity screening followed by cell-based functional assays via microfluidics and FACS, accelerating peptide hit identification for drug development programs, including radiopharmaceuticals.[3][4][5][6] The company has secured £6.9M ($7.6M) in Series A funding in 2022 to industrialize its platform and expand partnerships, demonstrating strong growth through three active pharma collaborations and recent deals like with Evergreen Discovery.[2][3][4]
Orbit Discovery was co-founded in late 2015 by Professors Graham Ogg and Terry Rabbitts from the University of Oxford’s Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine.[1][2] Ogg, a medically trained dermatologist and MRC Programme Leader at the MRC Human Immunology Unit, brought expertise in immunology, while Rabbitts contributed foundational work on peptide display technologies originally developed to probe T-cell epitopes on cell surfaces using diverse peptide libraries.[1][2] The idea emerged from academic research aiming to present random peptides to T-cells with unknown specificity—a challenge for existing display technologies—evolving into a commercial platform supporting non-natural amino acids, constrained peptides, and post-translational modifications for drug discovery.[2][3] Early traction came from seed funding by Oxford Sciences Innovation and others, leading to a skilled team build-out and validation through commercial projects; by 2022, a £6.9M Series A round from investors like Borealis and Oxford Investment Consultants enabled platform scaling and pharma partnerships, marking pivotal industrialization.[2][3]
Orbit rides the surging wave of peptide therapeutics, a market expanding due to peptides' specificity, stability, rapid clearance, and potential for bioconjugates in precision medicine—particularly for hard-to-drug targets like GPCRs, which dominate druggable genomes but lag in new modalities.[1][3][4][6] Timing aligns with rising demand for radiopharmaceuticals and targeted therapies in oncology, autoimmune, and metabolic diseases, fueled by successes in GLP-1 agonists and antibody-drug conjugates, where peptides offer lower toxicity alternatives.[4][6] Favorable forces include advances in microfluidics/FACS for high-throughput screening and investor interest in platform biotech, as seen in Orbit's funding amid peptide market growth projected to hit tens of billions.[2][3] Orbit influences the ecosystem by de-risking early discovery for pharmas, enabling faster clinical translation, and pioneering functional screening that could unlock novel T-cell probes or delivery mechanisms, positioning Oxford's spinout hub as a peptide innovation leader.[2][4]
Orbit is primed to expand its platform industrialization with existing pharma partnerships and new deals in radiopharma and beyond, leveraging its validated tech to capture share in the booming peptide therapeutics space.[2][3][4] Trends like AI-enhanced library design, multimodal conjugations, and GPCR-focused campaigns will amplify its edge, potentially yielding first clinical candidates from internal or partnered programs within 3-5 years. Its influence may evolve from service provider to full-fledged therapeutics developer, humanizing drug discovery through Oxford-rooted innovation that turns academic peptide probing into scalable, high-impact medicines.[1][2][6]
Orbit Discovery has raised $17.0M across 2 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $8.0M Seed in July 2021.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jul 1, 2021 | $8.0M Seed | Borealis Ventures, Oxford Science Enterprises, SV Health Investors | |
| May 1, 2018 | $9.0M Series A | Borealis Ventures, SV Health Investors |
