Arlan Biotech — a startup that creates nanobodies using artificial intelligence

Bolat Sultankulov, 35 years old, city — Astana, founder and CEO of Arlan Biotech, LinkedIn

About Me

By education, I am a biologist. I earned a PhD degree from Nazarbayev University in Biomedical Engineering. I am a full-fledged scientist with research achievements and experimental experience. Thus, I had research experience even before founding the startup.

In 2020, I began conducting research on creating nanobodies. At that time, the "National Center for Biotechnology" provided me with access to its laboratory. I worked alone on all experimental work and conducted clinical studies at the Research Institute of Pulmonology and Immunology. Financially, I was supported by the Social Development Fund of Nazarbayev University, Young Researchers Alliance, and Jas Ventures provided angel investments.

About Creating the Startup

The company Arlan Biotech was founded in 2021. Initially, we engaged in research and development to create a test system based on synthetic nanobodies for detecting coronavirus.

After working with nanobodies for over three years, we realized that the laboratory work we were doing would become outdated soon. This is because there is already data on how to create nanobodies not through experimental methods, but using artificial intelligence. Therefore, I decided to move into this direction and focus on AI solutions. To develop the product, I taught myself programming, and later, the current co-founder, Daucken Seitkal, joined the project, handling AI development.

The product helps people save time. For scientists, generating nanobodies can take anywhere from four to six months. Additionally, their creation is expensive: it requires special infrastructure and staff. Most importantly, there is always a possibility of human error. Our product does all of this in just a few minutes.

We understood the pain points of scientists because we ourselves had created such projects. We knew that the product would be interesting in the market.

Target Audience

Our target audience is scientists and pharmaceutical companies.

For scientists, it is important to have nanobodies for diagnostics, therapy, and experimental work. Many products currently available on the market are limited. They bind only to specific parts of a protein. In contrast, we give users the opportunity for customization: they can choose the protein and the specific region they want to test. This "unlocks" their hands for research and accelerates the creation of new products.

Incubation, Acceleration

Currently, we are undergoing our first acceleration program — Silkway Accelerator from Astana Hub.

Acceleration programs have a positive impact: they force founders and employees to work faster and identify vulnerabilities in business models.

In 2021, we received angel investments from Jas Ventures. Now, we are attracting clients and operating through sales. We are developing a DeepTech product using AI technologies. Such companies may not generate revenue until the product is fully completed.

Challenges

Our product is understood only by scientists and people involved in the pharmaceutical industry in Kazakhstan. Most venture capital firms and business angels have no idea what we do. However, this is a solvable challenge.

Initially, there were no BioTech or DeepTech companies in the startup market. Marketing and EdTech startups were mainly developing. Now, the situation is changing. The entrepreneurial ecosystem is becoming more science-intensive. In the future, not only interesting business models but also the technologies themselves will be important.

Achievements:

1. Conducted clinical and laboratory studies of our test
2. Obtained two Kazakhstani patents: one for the sequence of nanobodies that bind to coronavirus and another for how to make antigen tests
3. Registered a trademark
4. Passed the Silkway Accelerator
5. Attracted our first clients.

Plans

We aim to enter the international market and become the first international BioTech startup from Kazakhstan.

By the end of the year, we plan to make our product more user-friendly.