Avista Therapeutics Expands AI Gene Therapy Platform to Break Barriers in the Delivery of Genetic Medicines

PITTSBURGH, Jan. 9, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Avista Therapeutics, a preclinical gene therapy company built on deep clinical, computational and gene therapy expertise, today announced the significant expansion of its gene therapy platform. Through an AI-driven expansion of its capsid design program and the addition of a new Innovation Platform, Avista will address critical barriers in AAV capsid engineering, large gene delivery, and manufacturing using machine learning and structural dynamics.

Building on the development of a suite of best-in-class capsids for retinal gene therapy, Avista has launched ARTEMIS, a powerful AI platform for capsid engineering. ARTEMIS leverages large, gold-standard non-human primate datasets with single-cell resolution acquired in-house using Avista’s scAAVengr-HUnT workflow. These datasets describe millions of AAV variants across serotypes, tissues, routes of administration and animal models. ARTEMIS combines this data with proprietary protein language models and molecular dynamics of capsids to create powerful generative models for capsid engineering. Extending sequence models with molecular dynamics of capsids, ARTEMIS explicitly incorporates structural mechanistic information underlying the biology of capsid fitness, which sequence-only models cannot capture.

Avista has also launched a new Innovation Platform dedicated to addressing critical barriers in AAV targeting, large gene delivery, and AAV manufacturing through the combination of structural biology, protein design and deep clinical expertise. The innovation programs aim to develop pioneering solutions to the field’s toughest technological challenges, leading to breakthroughs that will revolutionize the field of gene therapy and unlock its potential for patients in need of novel treatments.

“The powerful combination of sequence and structural mechanism AI models uniquely position Avista as a leader in capsid design, with the ability to rapidly develop safe and highly efficient delivery of genetic medicines in tissues across the body,” said Robert Lin, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Avista. “Building upon our best-in-class intravitreal vectors, Avista is leveraging these innovative technologies to create impactful therapies, with a clinical pipeline encompassing preclinical stage programs for XLRS, PRPF31, and other retinal diseases, as well as CNS indications.”

About Avista Therapeutics
Avista (avistatx.com) is a biotechnology company spun out of the University of Pittsburgh, and built on deep clinical, computational and gene therapy expertise, whose mission is to break barriers in delivery of genetic medicines through AI-driven innovation. Avista is dedicated to providing meaningful therapies to patients and addressing devastating diseases in the retina and CNS. Avista is a UPMC Enterprises portfolio company based in Pittsburgh, PA.

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SOURCE Avista Therapeutics