48Hour Discovery
48Hour Discovery is a Canadian peptide drug discovery services company using chemically modified phage display, high-throughput screening, and bioinformatics to deliver peptide candidates and licensing partnerships to pharmaceutical and radiopharmaceutical clients worldwide.
- Company typePrivate
- Founded2017
- HeadquartersEdmonton, Canada
- Headcount11–50
- GTM typeB2B
- OfferingServices
What 48Hour Discovery does
48Hour Discovery is a privately held Canadian biotechnology company founded in 2017 and headquartered in Edmonton, Alberta, with an additional office near Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company provides peptide-based drug discovery services to pharmaceutical and radiopharmaceutical clients, using a proprietary chemically modified phage display platform combined with billion-scale genetically encoded libraries, high-throughput screening, and bioinformatics. Its platform spans hit generation through lead optimization, with capabilities in protein and cell-based screening, chemical modifications (mono- and bi-cyclic, linkers, payload attachment), and a recently published late-stage peptide reshaping method that converts macrocycles into bicyclic structures in two days of hands-on work. A Target Prescreening Service provides pre-validated data across more than 20 cancer targets, and the company maintains an internal radiopharmaceutical pipeline focused on targets such as PD-L1, EpCAM, and ROR1.
48Hour Discovery monetizes through bespoke discovery services, strategic collaborations, and exclusive licensing agreements with pharmaceutical and radiopharmaceutical partners. Its stated customer base ranges from emerging biotech startups to global pharmaceutical entities, with one named flagship partnership — AdvanCell — covering a Lead-212 (212Pb) targeted alpha radioligand therapy program for gastrointestinal cancer, expected to enter the clinic in 2027. The company has built an ecosystem of 25+ strategic partnerships and has been funded primarily through Canadian government and foundation grants (Alberta Cancer Foundation, Edmonton Edge Fund, Prairies Economic Development Canada, NRC IRAP), with no disclosed institutional venture capital.
Operationally, 48Hour Discovery is led by CEO Rick Finnegan and Founder/CSO Dr. Ratmir Derda, supported by a board including Curtis Sprouse, Tomi Sawyer, and Kerry Brown, and a scientific advisory board including Dr. Frank Wuest (University of Alberta), Andrei Yudin, and Tony Manning. The company has 11–50 employees, focuses its go-to-market on enterprise field sales and direct partnerships rather than transactional distribution, and markets itself through peer-reviewed publications, press releases, conference presence, and a maintained LinkedIn presence.
48Hour Discovery firmographics
Firmographics- Name
- 48Hour Discovery
- Legal name
- 48Hour Discovery
- Website
- https://48hourdiscovery.com
- Company type
- Private
- Founded year
- 2017
- Operating status
- Operating
- Headcount range
- 11–50 employees
- Short description
- 48Hour Discovery is a Canadian peptide drug discovery services company using chemically modified phage display, high-throughput screening, and bioinformatics to deliver peptide candidates and licensing partnerships to pharmaceutical and radiopharmaceutical clients worldwide.
- Ownership category
- akta.pro rank
48Hour Discovery industry classification
Industry- Product category
- Peptide Drug Discovery Services
- NAICS
- Research and Development in Biotechnology (except Nanobiotechnology) (541714), Scientific Research and Development Services (5417)
- SIC
- Services-Commercial Physical & Biological Research (8731)
- akta.pro primary industry
- Library & Diversity Generation Platforms (display libraries, DNA-encoded libraries for biologics, variant libraries) (HLAAAIAL)
- akta.pro secondary industries
- AI/ML-Enabled Biologic Discovery Platforms (computational design, in silico screening) (HLAAAIAE), AI/ML Platforms for Drug Discovery & Experiment Optimization (HLAGAJAO)
Keywords
Where 48Hour Discovery is headquartered
LocationHeadquarters
- HQ city
- Edmonton
- HQ country
- Canada
- HQ region
- North America
Offices2 records
Markets served
48Hour Discovery business model
Business model- GTM type
- B2B
- Offering type
- Services
- Cost components
- Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Infrastructure, Marketing or Sales
Revenue model
- Discovery Services and Partnerships: 48Hour Discovery generates revenue through discovery service partnerships with pharmaceutical companies, strategic collaborations, and licensing agreements for peptide-based therapeutics. Their model involves taking projects from inception through synthesis, validation, and optimization.
- Collaborative Development Deals: Revenue from exclusive licensing agreements with partners like AdvanCell, where 48Hour Discovery provides peptide discovery platform access while partners obtain rights for development and commercialization.
Go-to-market motion1 record
Distribution channels2 records
Marketing channels4 records
48Hour Discovery product offering
Product offeringCore offering
48Hour Discovery provides peptide-based drug discovery services to pharmaceutical partners using its proprietary chemically modified phage display platform combined with high-throughput screening, AI-driven optimization, and advanced bioinformatics. Offerings span the full discovery workflow from inception through synthesis, validation, and lead optimization across both protein and cell-based targets, including radiopharmaceutical targeting, with an internal pipeline of peptide therapeutic and diagnostic candidates available for licensing.
Product overview
48Hour Discovery operates as a peptide discovery platform company offering a unified technology ecosystem centered on its proprietary chemically modified phage display platform. The core platform is complemented by a Target Prescreening Service providing pre-screened cancer targets, a Late-Stage Peptide Reshaping Technology module for chemical refinement, and Discovery Services spanning from hit generation through optimization. The company also maintains an internal Radiopharmaceutical Pipeline of peptide-based therapeutic and diagnostic candidates (PD-L1, EpCAM, and undisclosed targets) developed for partnership and licensing. Together, these offerings enable rapid identification and optimization of peptide drug candidates for clients ranging from emerging startups to global pharmaceutical companies.
Differentiator
Problem solved
Functional benefit
Products and services
- Peptide Discovery Platform 48Hour Discovery's proprietary platform combining chemically modified phage display technology, billion-scale genetically encoded libraries, high-throughput screening, AI-driven optimization, and advanced bioinformatics to rapidly identify and optimize peptide drug candidates with high affinity and specificity for pharmaceutical and radiopharmaceutical partners.
- Discovery Services Comprehensive discovery partner services taking projects from inception through synthesis, validation, and optimization across both protein-based and cell-based screening targets, serving emerging startups to global pharmaceutical entities.
- Target Prescreening Service Proactive peptide drug discovery service providing immediate access to pre-screened binding enrichment data, specificity profiles, and preliminary affinity results across diverse cancer targets, including over 20 well-characterized targets (such as PD-L1, EpCAM, and ROR1) with 16 additional targets currently being evaluated.
- Radiopharmaceutical Pipeline Dynamic internal pipeline of therapeutic and diagnostic radiopharmaceutical targets available for partnership and licensing, with current programs covering PD-L1 and EpCAM targets at various stages from hit generation through lead optimization alongside undisclosed targets focused on critical unmet medical needs in cancer treatment.
Quantifiable outcome
- Two-day hands-on process for late-stage peptide reshaping
- +2 more outcomes
Companies that use 48Hour Discovery
Customer profileNamed customers1 record
Segments2 records
Ideal customer profiles2 records
48Hour Discovery technology and API
TechnologyTechnology focussed Yes
API detail
- Has API
- No
- API docs
- API detail
Core technology
AI maturity
App detail
AI capability1 record
Feature6 records
48Hour Discovery partnerships and signals
Strategic signalPartnerships
Two partnerships are on record, tiered flagship and core.
- AdvanCellflagshipCollaboration and exclusive licensing agreement to develop a novel peptide-based Lead-212 (212Pb) radioligand therapy program for oncology targeting gastrointestinal cancer. 48Hour Discovery provides its peptide discovery platform to create peptide ligands optimized for delivering AdvanCell's alpha-emitting lead-212 payload. AdvanCell obtains exclusive worldwide rights for development and commercialization. Program expected to advance into clinic in 2027. This partnership validates 48Hour Discovery's discovery engine in the radioligand therapy space and supports its broader strategy of partnering with multiple companies developing targeted alpha therapies.
- University of Alberta (Dr. Frank Wuest)coreCollaboration with Dr. Frank Wuest from University of Alberta for radiopharmaceutical research and development, exemplifying power of strategic partnerships in building Edmonton's radiopharmaceutical ecosystem.
Scale indicators4 records
Recent moves6 records
Expansion highlights6 records
48Hour Discovery competitors and assessment
Company assessmentDirect peers
- PeptiDream: PeptiDream operates a proprietary Peptide Discovery Platform System (PDPS) for identifying non-standard peptides against disease targets and licenses discovery results to pharma partners. It is the closest analog to 48Hour Discovery's phage-display-based, partnership-driven peptide discovery model.
- Bicycle Therapeutics: Bicycle Therapeutics develops bicyclic peptide therapeutics (Bicycles) for oncology and other indications using phage-display-derived constrained peptides. Its molecular class directly overlaps with 48Hour's late-stage reshaping technology, which converts macrocycles into bicycles.
- AbCellera Biologics: AbCellera runs an industry-leading antibody discovery platform that combines immune-source interrogation with high-throughput screening and AI, partnering with pharma on discovery programs. It is structurally comparable as a display-library-plus-AI discovery services company serving global pharma.
- Philochem AG: Philochem operates a peptide and small-molecule discovery platform using chemical genetics and phage-display-derived libraries, generating candidates for oncology and imaging indications. Its mix of platform discovery plus licensing deals to pharma aligns with 48Hour's go-to-market.
Broad incumbents
- Schrödinger: Schrödinger provides physics-based computational chemistry and AI/ML drug discovery software used by pharma and biotech for hit identification and lead optimization. It sits in 48Hour's adjacent layer of AI-enabled discovery tooling but operates as a software platform rather than a wet-lab discovery services provider.
- Recursion Pharmaceuticals: Recursion applies industrial-scale high-throughput biology and AI/ML to phenotypic drug discovery across many target classes, with pharma partnerships and in-house pipeline programs. Comparable as a tech-enabled discovery company monetizing platform output through partnerships.
- Isomorphic Labs: Isomorphic Labs, an Alphabet-backed drug discovery company, combines deep learning with experimental biology to discover small-molecule and potentially biologic therapeutics in partnership with pharma. It competes at the AI-enabled discovery layer that increasingly overlaps with 48Hour's AI-assisted peptide optimization.
Emerging players
- Crinetics Pharmaceuticals: Crinetics develops peptide-based therapeutics (notably oral nonpeptide and peptide candidates) targeting endocrine diseases and rare neuroendocrine tumors. It demonstrates downstream peptide drug product economics that 48Hour's discovery outputs feed into, making it a relevant value-chain peer.
- Adagene: Adagene uses AI-driven platform biology (including PowerCasting and NEObody technologies) to discover antibody-based therapeutics in oncology. Its platform-plus-partnership model and focus on targeted cancer therapeutics overlap with the buyer profile 48Hour serves.
Others
- GenScript ProBio: GenScript ProBio is a CDMO and biologics discovery services provider offering antibody engineering, cell line development, and discovery support to pharma and biotech. It is an adjacent services vendor that competes for parts of 48Hour's CRO/discovery-services wallet.
Market position
Strengths5 records
Weaknesses5 records
Competitive moat4 records
Key risks7 records
Key highlights7 records
Customer concentration
48Hour Discovery social profiles
Digital presence48Hour Discovery financial estimates
Financial estimateRevenue estimate
Valuation estimate
48Hour Discovery leadership team
Management profileNumber of profiles
Profiles8 records
48Hour Discovery funding detail
Funding detailFunding overview
Funding rounds4 records
Investors3 records
Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
48Hour Discovery M&A and investment
M&A and investmentM&A
Investments
M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →
Frequently asked questions about 48Hour Discovery
What does 48Hour Discovery do?
48Hour Discovery provides peptide-based drug discovery services to pharmaceutical partners using its proprietary chemically modified phage display platform combined with high-throughput screening, AI-driven optimization, and advanced bioinformatics. Offerings span the full discovery workflow from inception through synthesis, validation, and lead optimization across both protein and cell-based targets, including radiopharmaceutical targeting, with an internal pipeline of peptide therapeutic and diagnostic candidates available for licensing.
Is 48Hour Discovery a public or private company?
48Hour Discovery is a private company. It is classified as founder individual operated bootstrapped and is currently operating.
When was 48Hour Discovery founded?
48Hour Discovery was founded in 2017. It employs 11 to 50 people.
Where is 48Hour Discovery based?
48Hour Discovery is headquartered in Edmonton, Canada, in the North America region.
How does 48Hour Discovery make money?
Two revenue lines are on record. Discovery Services and Partnerships are the primary driver. The others are collaborative Development Deals.
Who are 48Hour Discovery's main competitors?
Direct peers on record are PeptiDream, Bicycle Therapeutics, AbCellera Biologics and Philochem AG. Broad incumbents are Schrödinger, Recursion Pharmaceuticals and Isomorphic Labs. Emerging players are Crinetics Pharmaceuticals and Adagene. GenScript ProBio is listed as an others.
Does 48Hour Discovery have an API?
No public API is recorded for 48Hour Discovery.
What industry is 48Hour Discovery in?
48Hour Discovery's product category is Peptide Drug Discovery Services. Its primary akta.pro industry code is HLAAAIAL, Library & Diversity Generation Platforms (display libraries, DNA-encoded libraries for biologics, variant libraries), with a secondary code of HLAAAIAE, AI/ML-Enabled Biologic Discovery Platforms (computational design, in silico screening). Its NAICS code is 541714 and its SIC code is 8731.