Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult (CGT Catapult) will provide investment to Lir Therapeutics (Lir) from the Innovate UK Cross Catapult Investment Pilot, to accelerate the development of nAAVigator, its AI-driven AAV capsid design platform. The investment will support Lir in advancing the biological validation of the platform and building the evidence base needed to engage pharma partners and biotech investors.
Lir has built an AI-driven “lab-in-the-loop” pipeline that designs and selects novel adeno-associated virus (AAV) capsids for use in gene therapies. These capsids act as delivery shells that carry therapeutic cargo into target cells to replace, silence or edit genes of interest. AAV-based therapies have demonstrated clinical success across neuromuscular, retinal and central nervous system diseases, with growing momentum in cardiac and kidney indications.
Founded in the UK in 2024, Lir is developing and validating nAAVigator, an AI-driven viral vector design platform. nAAVigator is designed to address key limitations in AAV-mediated therapy delivery — including challenges relating to manufacturing , immunogenicity, potency, and off-target effects. Once validated, the platform is intended to enable the streamlined development of bespoke AAV capsid variants tailored to the specific needs of Lir’s partners.
Alongside the financial investment from the Innovate UK Cross Catapult Investment Pilot, CGT Catapult will provide Lir with expert support and advice to help align the platform with the current priorities of pharma partners and biotech-focused investors. The investment will fund biological validation and benchmarking experiments and the generation of additional datasets.
Killian Hanlon, CEO of Lir said: “Gene therapy is at a crossroads. There are so many diseases affecting millions that could be amenable to treatment with gene therapy, but viral vectors aren’t where we need them to be to do this. Lir exists to build a system that makes better, safer vectors a reality – to make gene therapy a cornerstone of modern medicine for any disease. We are delighted to receive this investment from the Catapult. This additional funding is already accelerating development of our platform, and having CGT Catapult’s key expertise on our side is an incredible boon. Overall, this investment represents a springboard opportunity for Lir to advance its pipeline and fuel our commercial development.”
Matthew Durdy, Chief Executive of CGT Catapult said: “Lir is tackling one of the fundamental challenges in gene therapy by designing AAV capsids that are safer, more targeted, and easier to manufacture at scale. By combining AI with rigorous biological validation, they are developing tools that could meaningfully accelerate the translation of promising therapies into patient benefit. Our investment through the Innovate UK Cross Catapult Investment Pilot is designed to help Lir accelerate its technology, and build the evidence base to support future conversations with potential investors and partners, enabling its scale-up in the UK. This is the kind of investment that sits at the heart of what we are here to do: helping the breakthrough research in this sector find its path to commercialisation and scale, and supporting the companies that will deliver transformative medicines to patients around the world.”
