# Nona Biosciences Successfully Develops World's First Language Model Trained on Fully Human Heavy-Chain-Only Antibodies

- Link: https://www.thailand-business-news.com/pr-news/nona-biosciences-successfully-develops-worlds-first-language-model-trained-on-fully-human-heavy-chain-only-antibodies
- Published: 2026-09-16T17:01:00+07:00
- Author: PR Newswire

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CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Nona Biosciences ("Nona"), a global
biotechnology company advancing biologics discovery and development through innovative
technology platforms, today announced the development of HCAbLM, the world’s first
language model specifically trained on fully human heavy-chain-only antibodies (
HCAbs). HCAbLM was built on a large-scale repertoire comprising 31.8 million fully
human HCAb sequences from 73 independently immunized HCAb transgenic mice. The study,"
A foundation model learns the sequence and functional grammar of fully human heavy-
chain-only antibodies," was published in [bioRxiv](https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.10.750553v1).

**From Binder to Drug Candidate: A Leap in AI Antibody Development**

The main bottleneck in the current AI antibody field is no longer "whether an antibody
that binds the target can be designed," but rather "whether the designed antibody
can be manufactured at scale, whether it will aggregate, and whether it is stable"—
that is, developability. HCAbLM was created precisely to address this issue. The
model has learned the "sequence grammar" unique to fully human HCAbs—a set of underlying
rules that determine whether an antibody can fold, exist stably, and ultimately 
become a drug. Conventional general-purpose models cannot capture this set of rules
because their training data contain almost no HCAb sequences. HCAbLM fully demonstrates
that a dedicated model trained on unique antibody sequence data can better translate"
sequence space cognition" into "developability prediction."

**A Dedicated HCAb Model Outperforms General-Purpose Protein and Antibody Models**

The representations learned by HCAbLM demonstrate transferability to experimentally
measured antibody properties, including size exclusion chromatography (SEC) purity,
hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) behavior, and thermal stability, highlighting
HCAbLM’s potential in the evaluation and optimization of fully human HCAbs, going
beyond mere sequence analysis.

In public benchmarks for cross-project developability prediction, HCAbLM, with only
366 million parameters, surpassed general-purpose protein large models including
Meta’s ESM-6B with 6 billion parameters, as well as previously leading antibody 
language models IgLM and AbLang, on two core metrics: SEC purity and HIC behavior.

The development of HCAbLM marks an important advancement in Nona’s application of
artificial intelligence (AI) to antibody discovery and development. By combining
large-scale antibody repertoires with AI-driven modeling, Nona is building a foundation
for more efficient and data-driven antibody design and developability assessment.

"The development of HCAbLM represents an important step in our efforts to apply 
AI to specialized antibody formats and unlock the value of large-scale antibody 
repertoires," said Dr. Di Hong, Chief Executive Officer of Nona Biosciences. "By
learning the unique sequence characteristics of fully human HCAbs and demonstrating
transferability to experimentally measured molecular properties, HCAbLM provides
a new foundation for AI-enabled antibody discovery and development. We look forward
to further integrating HCAbLM with Nona’s technology platforms, and leveraging these
capabilities to accelerate antibody discovery and development while empowering our
partners to unlock new opportunities for next-generation biotherapeutics."

**About Nona Biosciences**

Nona Biosciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of HBM Holding Limited (HKEX:02142),
is a global biotechnology company committed to advancing biotherapeutic innovation
through cutting-edge technology platforms and integrated solutions. Nona supports
programs with its I to I^(®) framework, from early-stage ideas through preclinical
research and advancement toward IND and early clinic, spanning target validation
and antibody discovery to early development.

Nona’s proprietary Harbour Mice^(®) technology platform generates fully human monoclonal
antibodies in classical two light and two heavy chain (H2L2) format, and heavy chain-
only (HCAb) format. The HCAb Harbour Mice^(®) is the world’s first fully human HCAb
transgenic mouse with clinical validation. This unique platform offers exceptional
versatility for diverse applications using fully human VH single-domain antibodies
as a plug-and-play system, including bispecific antibodies, multi-specific antibodies,
CAR-T therapies, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), mRNA-based therapeutics, and more.

By integrating Harbour Mice^(®), single-B cell screening technology, NonaCarFx™ (
a direct CAR-function-based screening platform), Hu-mAtrIx™ (an AI-driven drug discovery
platform), Modalities-on-Demand^(®) (a next-generation modalities solution), and
end-to-end preclinical drug development services, Nona Biosciences is dedicated 
to driving the global invention of transformative next-generation drugs. For more
information, please visit: [www.nonabio.com](https://www.nonabio.com/).

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**Read the original article :** [Nona Biosciences Successfully Develops World's First Language Model Trained on Fully Human Heavy-Chain-Only Antibodies ](http://www.prnasia.com/story/archive/5049290_CN49290_0?rand=184833)
