HotHouse Therapeutics

Startup

HotHouse Therapeutics is building humanity's permanent defence against infectious disease. The next pandemic is a matter of when, not if, yet the world's most advanced vaccines depend on a single natural adjuvant, QS-21, harvested from the bark of one Chilean tree species. Supply is failing within a decade. HotHouseTx removes that constraint.

A spin-out from Professor Anne Osbourn's laboratory at the John Innes Centre, the team that decoded the QS-21 biosynthetic pathway and published it in Science, HotHouseTx designs and manufactures next generation saponin adjuvants through AI and plant biology. Its BotanAI and BotanBio platforms turn slow natural product extraction into rapid, iterative optimisation.

The platform delivers design, make and test cycles in six weeks and on drug discovery timelines, rather than the thirty years nature demands. For the first time, adjuvants can be engineered rationally and paired precisely to an antigen's required immune profile, opening the path to personalised adjuvants. Lead compounds are already less toxic and more scalable than the standard of care.

Every antigen match is a product, and every product enables new lifesaving vaccines. HotHouseTx welcomes potential collaborators seeking superior saponin solutions, beyond QS-21, and investors to secure global biosecurity.

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