Genesis Therapeutics, a company pioneering artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to create breakthrough medicines for patients with severe diseases, announced that it has closed an oversubscribed $200 million round of Series B financing. The fresh capital will enable Genesis to evolve into a clinical stage company, further invest in its state-of-the-art AI platform, and ambitiously expand its discovery pipeline.
The financing was co-led by a U.S.-based life-sciences-focused investor, along with returning investor Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Bio + Health which led the company’s seed financing. In addition, several other new investors participated in the Series B including Fidelity Management & Research Company, BlackRock, and NVIDIA’s venture capital arm NVentures, along with existing investors T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Rock Springs Capital, Radical Ventures, and Menlo Ventures.
The funds will be used to advance Genesis’ existing wholly owned pipeline of AI-enabled programs into clinical development. Genesis will also invest in continued development of novel and state-of-the-art generative and predictive AI methods, which form the foundation of the Genesis Exploration of Molecular Space (GEMS) platform. Additionally, the Series B capital will enable Genesis to ambitiously expand its pipeline, initiating new programs for underserved patient populations and leveraging the GEMS platform to make progress against challenging and previously undruggable targets.
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“AI presents a potent opportunity to revolutionize the drug discovery process, which frequently struggles to produce viable drug candidates against targets that are biologically well-validated but considered undruggable due to highly challenging chemistry,” said CEO Evan Feinberg, Ph.D. “This funding comes as Genesis is approaching an inflection point with the first of our AI-enabled drug candidates entering the clinic. The addition of our new lead investor, and other meaningful additions to our biotech and AI-oriented syndicate, will support Genesis in developing breakthrough therapies for patients with severe unmet medical needs, and their families, capitalizing on the broad applicability and potential of the GEMS AI platform.”
Vijay Pande, Ph.D., founding general partner at a16z Bio + Health, was the Henry Dreyfus Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Structural Biology and of Computer Science at Stanford University and co-invented some of the foundational Genesis deep learning technologies. Dr. Pande commented: “Genesis has uniquely integrated deep learning and simulations since inception, and the ability of their GEMS AI platform to address previously undruggable targets is a testament to Genesis’ leadership in molecular generative AI. Blending technology and biomedicine has untapped potential, and it’s an exciting time to be at the nexus of these two powerful forces. Each new advance Genesis makes with their field-leading AI platform not only pushes technological boundaries but also brings hope to countless individuals awaiting medical breakthroughs.”
SOURCE: Businesswire