Atlas Venture is an early-stage venture capital firm that creates and invests in biotech startup companies led by promising entrepreneurs focusing on life sciences innovation. Its seed-led venture creation strategy rigorously selects and focuses investment on compelling opportunities to build scalable businesses and realize value.

Atlas Venture

Schrödinger develops a computational platform that facilitates the research efforts of biopharmaceutical and industrial companies, academic institutions, and government laboratories worldwide. Schrödinger also has wholly-owned and collaborative drug discovery programs in a broad range of therapeutic areas. Schrödinger is deeply committed to investing in the science and talent that drive its computational platform.

Schrödinger

Lilly Ventures is the venture capital arm of Eli Lilly and Company responsible for life science investing in North America and Europe.  Its primary goal is to facilitate the success of companies in its areas of focus through early to expansion stage investments and value-adding resources. Lilly Ventures currently has $200 million under management and focuses on three major areas of interest. It partner actively with the management teams of its portfolio companies to realize the potential of their technologies.

Lilly Ventures

SR One is the corporate venture capital arm of GlaxoSmithKline. The firm invests globally in emerging life science companies that are pursuing innovative science which will significantly impact medical care. Since 1985, SR One has invested approximately 800 million in more than 180 companies.

SR One

Pfizer Venture Investments is a corporate venture capital firm that invests in areas of current or future strategic interest to Pfizer. It aims to remain at the forefront of life science advances. It identifies and invests in emerging companies that are developing transformative medicines and technologies that have the potential to enhance Pfizer’s pipeline and shape the future of its industry.

Pfizer Venture Investments

Lightstone Ventures is a global venture capital firm that invests in personalized medicines and targeted therapeutics. Lightstone Ventures was founded in 2012 by the General Partners and other key members of the life science teams of Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV) and Morgenthaler.  The firm was formed to capture the upside of investing in breakthrough life science companies during a time of unique opportunity in space.

Lightstone Ventures

Google Ventures invests in sectors including life sciences, consumer, enterprise, crypto, climate, and frontier technology. With Alphabet as its sole limited partner, Google Ventures focuses on long-term investments. Its operating partners assist startups in design, equity, diversity & inclusion, talent, and engineering and help them connect with Google for technology and expertise. Founded in 2009 as Google Ventures, Google Ventures manages over $8 billion in assets with 400 active portfolio companies in North America and Europe. Some notable investments include Uber, Nest, Slack, GitLab, and One Medical. Google Ventures is based in the San Francisco Bay Area with offices in Cambridge, New York, and London.

Google Ventures

SV Health Investors, formerly SV Life Sciences, is a leading healthcare and life sciences venture capital and growth equity firm.  Their goal is to transform healthcare – one investment at a time – by supporting the entrepreneurs who create and build breakthrough companies and treatments.  With over $2 billion in capital under management in seven private healthcare funds, a 20-year track record in the US and Europe and offices in Boston, San Francisco and London, SV Health Investors drives game-changing innovation.

SV Health Investors

RA Capital Management is an investment advisor based in Boston specializing in the life-sciences and drug development sectors. The company's team has been investing since 2002 and is comprised of professionals with training in biology, chemistry, and medicine and also has industry and business development experience at the executive and board levels. The company invests in companies with promising technologies and products.

RA Capital Management

Biotechnology Value Fund is a San Francisco-based private investment partnership specializing in fundamentally-driven public biotechnology investments.  Since its inception in 1993, BVF has strived to build concentrated, long-term investments in small-cap biotechnology companies while performing rigorous diligence and on-going monitoring of its investments.  BVF is committed to working with its portfolio companies as partners in their successes.

Biotechnology Value Fund

Bain Capital Life Sciences specializes in buyouts, inflexion capital, growth capital, turnaround investments, and private equity. It invests in pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device, diagnostic, and life science tool companies across the globe, with a focus on companies that both drive medical innovation across the value chain and enable that innovation to improve the lives of patients with unmet medical needs. The differentiated skillset of the Bain Capital Life Sciences team enables it to deliver targeted capital and value-added strategic support to companies around critical phases of growth and inflexions in value.

Bain Capital Life Sciences

Gates Frontier Fund is an investment fund.

Gates Frontier Fund

Nimbus Therapeutics

Nimbus Discovery is now Nimbus Therapeutics to reflect our transition into a clinical-stage company. Nimbus Therapeutics is a biotechnology company headquartered in Cambridge, Mass., that is pioneering a new computational technology-driven paradigm to rapidly advance a diverse pipeline of novel small molecule product candidates into clinical development. Nimbus Therapeutics designs highly selective and potent medicines to disrupt known drivers of serious diseases, including metabolic disease, cancer, and immune-inflammatory disorders.

<div>Nimbus Therapeutics is a biotechnology company designing small molecule compounds targeted at various diseases. It utilizes the chemical simulation computational platform built by co-founder Schr&ouml;dinger Inc., which incorporates artificial intelligence and machine learning, and co-develops drugs by partnering with pharma companies. Its pipeline includes programs in metabolic diseases, cancer, and immune-inflammatory disorders.&nbsp;</div>

Artificial intelligence is identifying and testing new therapies faster than ever.

AI Drug Discovery

Nimbus Therapeutics Presents Positive Updated Data from Phase 1/2 Clinical Trial of HPK1 Inhibitor for Advanced Solid Tumors at SITC 39th Annual Meeting

Takeda

Takeda has acquired all shares of Nimbus Lakshmi, Inc. (“Lakshmi”) from Nimbus Therapeutics, LLC. This acquisition strengthens Takeda’s growing late-stage pipeline.

Biotechnology companies that have integrated AI as a core component of their in-house drug development process. They typically have a few in-house drug development programs, and also collaborate with pharma companies to develop certain drugs.

Eli Lilly

Nimbus Therapeutics is poised to develop isoform-selective small molecule activators of AMPK, targeting metabolic disorders, utilizing their computational drug discovery capabilities.

<div>
 
 Nimbus Therapeutics is a biotechnology company designing small molecule compounds targeted at various diseases. It utilizes the chemical simulation computational platform built by co-founder Schr&ouml;dinger Inc., which incorporates artificial intelligence and machine learning, and co-develops drugs by partnering with pharma companies. Its pipeline includes programs in metabolic diseases, cancer, and immune-inflammatory disorders.&nbsp;
 
 
 As of March 2024, the company was developing five targets, of which one is in the clinical stage, two are in the preclinical stage, and others remain at a discovery stage. The company initiated investigational new drug (IND)-enabling studies on two novel agents in 2022.
 
 
 Takeda Pharmaceuticals acquired Nimbus Therapeutics&rsquo;s fully owned subsidiary, Nimbus Lakshmi, and its tyrosine kinase 2 (TYK2) (intracellular enzyme) program 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16314">
 in February 2023
 </a>
 . Following the acquisition, Nimbus&rsquo; drug candidate, NDI-034858, for psoriasis was renamed to &ldquo;TAK-279.&rdquo;&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 Nimbus Therapeutics&rsquo;&nbsp; pharma partners include Roche&rsquo;s Genentech, Celgene, and Gilead.
 
 In 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/24983">
 December 2023
 </a>
 , Nimbus Therapeutics partnered with Anagenex to discover small-molecule drugs for various complex targets. Further, in October 2022, the company partnered with Eli Lilly to progress the development of novel targeted therapies that activate AMPK to potentially treat a broad range of metabolic disorders.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In September 2023, the company raised USD 210 million in a 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21624">
 private funding round
 </a>
 co-led by GV (Google Ventures) in September 2023 to advance Nimbus Therapeutics' pipeline of drugs for various disorders. 
 
</div>

<div>
 
 HiberCell is a biotechnology company that develops novel therapies focused on oncology. It entered the AI drug discovery space when it acquired AI genomics analysis company Genuity Science (and its subsidiaries in Iceland and Ireland) in August 2021.&nbsp;
 
 
 Genuity Science&rsquo;s solutions include end-to-end therapeutic discovery and development services such as building custom disease datasets, discovering and prioritizing targets, identifying biomarkers, and optimizing clinical trials. Genuity Science leverages its AI-powered platform to manage, process, and analyze genomic data. HiberCell intends to use Genuity Science&rsquo;s AI/ML capabilities to advance its oncology pipeline of five programs, of which one has reached the Phase 2 clinical trial stage.
 
 
 As of March 2024, the company&rsquo;s pipeline included three drug candidates, namely: 1) HC-7366, targeting the general control nonderepressible 2 (GCN2) kinase as part of the integrated stress response (ISR) signaling pathway; 2) HC-5404, aimed at inhibiting the PKR-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase (PERK) involved in the unfolded protein response (UPR) signaling pathway; and 3) odetiglucan, a therapy targeting tumor-immune interactions within the tumor microenvironment​.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 In December 2023, HiberCell and Merck &amp; Co partnered to conduct a Phase Ib trial to evaluate the combination therapy of belzutifan and HC-7366 for treating clear cell renal cell carcinoma. Further, in January 2021, the company partnered with Biodesix to develop an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay as a companion diagnostic test.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In 
 <a href="https://hibercell.com/news/hibercell-closes-67-4-million-series-b-financing-and-secures-30-million-debt-facility-from-hercules-capital/">
 May 2021
 </a>
 , HiberCell completed a Series B financing round, raising USD 67.4 million, and secured an additional USD 30 million in debt financing from Hercules Capital. The funds were expected to be used for clinical advancement of its novel therapeutic candidates. 
 
</div>

HiberCell

<div>
 
 Arbor Biotechnologies specializes in gene editing to develop novel therapeutics for a variety of indications, starting with liver-related diseases. It operates an AI-powered biodiscovery platform to discover novel CRISPR enzymes, which are sequences of repeating genetic code. To do this, its platform deploys computational search techniques, genome sequencing, gene synthesis, and high-throughput screening. This can eventually be turned into drugs or even applied to agriculture and other industrial uses. In 2018, the company announced the discovery of Cas13d, a new type of gene editing enzyme that helps to alter RNA to treat genetic diseases.&nbsp;
 
 
 As of February 2024, the company had five internal drug discovery programs, of which one was in the IND-enabling stage. It also has multiple collaborative programs under development focused on oncology and various other therapeutic areas.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company has a long-standing partnership with Vertex Pharmaceuticals since
 <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190103005194/en/Vertex-and-Arbor-Biotechnologies-Establish-Collaboration-to-Discover-Novel-Proteins-to-Advance-Discovery-of-Gene-Editing-Therapies">
 January 2019
 </a>
 , which focused on developing gene-editing treatments for cystic fibrosis and four other diseases. The alliance was further extended in 
 <a href="https://www.biospace.com/article/vertex-and-arbor-strike-a-1-2-billion-deal-for-gene-editing-programs/">
 August 2021
 </a>
 and 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15741">
 January 2023
 </a>
 .&nbsp;
 
 
 Other partnerships included a collaboration with 
 <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/arbor-biotechnologies-announces-collaboration-with-ginkgo-bioworks-to-advance-the-discovery-and-development-of-precision-gene-editors-302011991.html">
 Ginkgo Bioworks
 </a>
 (December 2023) to leverage Ginkgo's R&amp;D services to further optimize Arbor's novel precision editors, a non-exclusive licensing agreement with 
 <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/02/08/2380680/0/en/EdiGene-and-Arbor-Biotechnologies-Announce-Worldwide-Non-exclusive-License-Agreement-to-Advance-Ex-Vivo-Engineered-Cell-Therapy-Programs.html">
 EdiGene
 </a>
 (February 2022) to leverage Arbor&rsquo;s platform for ex vivo oncology therapies, a strategic research and non-exclusive licensing agreement with 
 <a href="https://investors.tcr2.com/news-releases/news-release-details/tcr2-therapeutics-and-arbor-biotechnologies-establish">
 TCR2 Therapeutics
 </a>
 (January 2022) to develop allogeneic TRuC T-cell therapies using Arbor&rsquo;s CRISPR technology, and a license agreement with 
 <a href="https://www.lonza.com/news/2020-12-23-14-00">
 Lonza
 </a>
 (December 2020) to use Arbor&rsquo;s gene-editing technology for Lonza&rsquo;s bioproduction products and services.
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In its latest Series B funding round in November 2021, which was led by Ally Bridge Group, TCG Crossover, and Temasek, Arbor Biotechnologies raised USD 215 million. The proceeds of the round were earmarked to fuel the company&rsquo;s clinical development pipeline.
 
</div>

Arbor Biotechnologies

Based in the UK, Arctoris provides an automated drug discovery platform, offering fully validated research and development (R&amp;D) processes under an Experiments-as-a-Service model. The company works with biotechnology companies, AI drug discovery companies, pharma and academic institutions enabling these institutions to run experiments in Arctoris’s platform and provides on-demand access to a broad scale of datasets for AI drug discovery companies to train their algorithms.

Arctoris

<div>
 
 Frontier Medicines leverages AI/ML technologies to develop treatments for cancer-causing proteins that are dismissed by traditional pharma companies as undruggable.&nbsp;
 
 
 The company has a proprietary chemoproteomic platform which entails an approach based on the interaction of small-molecule compounds and proteins to screen a large number of targets and combine them with a protein database that contains more than 150,000 novel binding pockets (hotspots). This enables it to access 90% of the human proteome that were not previously targeted due to lack of hotspots. The platform&rsquo;s AI/ML engine incorporates a library of diverse compounds, a hotspot map that serves as the starting point for understanding the druggability of a potential therapeutic target, and lead design and generation.&nbsp;
 
 
 The company focuses on oncology and immunology target and, as of February 2024, it had five wholly-owned therapeutic programs and three AbbVie-partnered programs in its pipeline. All programs were in their discovery stage, except the company&rsquo;s lead candidate, FMC-376 (activated and inactivated forms), focused on treating different cancer types, including non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), colorectal carcinoma (CRC), and pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), which is in the IND-enabling stage.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company entered a USD 100 million partnership with 
 <a href="https://news.abbvie.com/2020-12-02-AbbVie-and-Frontier-Medicines-Establish-Global-Partnership-to-Discover-and-Develop-Novel-Therapies-and-E3-Degraders-Against-Difficult-to-Drug-Targets">
 AbbVie
 </a>
 In December 2020 to develop small-molecule therapeutics against hard-to-drug protein targets including around 600 E3 ligases (the enzymes that drive the ubiquitination and degradation of proteins.&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In July 2021, the company raised USD 88.5 million in a 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4347">
 Series B
 </a>
 funding round co-led by Woodline Partners LP and RA Capital Management, with equal participation from Deerfield Management Company. The proceeds were earmarked for advancing the company&rsquo;s drug pipeline and expanding operations in Boston, where its new facility was to complement the company&rsquo;s headquarters in California. 
 
</div>

Frontier Medicines

<div>
 
 Verge Genomics is a biotechnology company engaged in developing therapeutics for neurological diseases using human genomics and AI to accelerate drug discovery. The main target areas are Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Parkinson&rsquo;s Disease (PD), and Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD).&nbsp;
 
 
 It has built a proprietary all-human platform (unlike standard clinical trials that rely on animal data), called CONVERGE, that uses data sets from brain tissue samples of deceased patients with ALS and PD. While most drugs target only one gene at a time, the company claims its technology can identify hundreds of genes that cause disease and develop drugs that target all the genes at the same time. The company uses AI technology to optimize the drug discovery process as a whole.
 
 
 As of March 2024, Verge had one drug candidate in the clinical stage (Phase I) and 10 drug candidates in the discovery stage.&nbsp;
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company has partnerships with various tissue banks (such as Harvard University and University of Miami Miller School of Medicine) and several educational institutes and foundations (such as Target ALS, Answer ALS) that enabled its drug discovery platform.&nbsp;
 
 
 In addition, the company&rsquo;s customers include several pharmaceutical companies, such as 1) 
 <a href="https://www.vergegenomics.com/news-blog/verge-genomics-announces-research-collaboration-with-the-sheffield-institute-for-translational-neuroscience">
 Sheffield Institute for Translational Neuroscience (SITraN)
 </a>
 to accelerate the validation of novel drug targets and screening of drug compounds for Parkinson's disease (February 2021), 2) 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/4146">
 Eli Lilly
 </a>
 to research and develop novel therapies to treat ALS (July 2021), 3) 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21707">
 Alexion
 </a>
 to identify novel drug targets for rare neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases (September 2023), and 4) 
 <a href="https://www.vergegenomics.com/news-blog/verge-genomics-and-the-pritzker-neuropsychiatric-disorders-research-consortium-form-cutting-edge-schizophrenia-research-collaboration">
 Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Research Consortium
 </a>
 to analyze data from schizophrenic patient&rsquo;s brain tissue with Verge&rsquo;s technology (October 2023).
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In December 2021, Verge raised USD 98 million in an oversubscribed 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7426">
 Series A
 </a>
 funding round led by BlackRock. The funds were used to scale up its pre-clinical and clinical candidate programs in the pipeline and enhance its lead therapeutics through clinical testing. 
 
</div>

Verge Genomics

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies providing their ML platform to other pharma companies for drug discovery services such as target selection, validation and lead optimization.

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies providing their ML platform to other pharma companies to design and run preclinical experiments.

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies providing their ML platform to other pharma companies to identify biomarkers (measurable biological signs used to determine disease progression) and predict drug response. 

SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) companies aggregating and analyzing biomedical data with the help of AI to generate insights across the drug development pipeline.

Companies leverage GenAI to support drug discovery through accelerated drug designing

Companies offer AI/ML-based SaaS products to accelerate the discovery and development of novel therapeutics

Offers AI/ML-based solutions to accelerate drug discovery and development

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

<div>
 Nimbus Therapeutics and Anagenex have announced a research partnership aimed at discovering small-molecule drugs for complex targets. Anagenex will get an upfront payment and potential milestone payments, and be eligible for an option from Nimbus for each program in the collaboration. The partnership will utilise Anagenex's AI-driven parallel biochemistry platform to generate large amounts of data for Nimbus' nominated targets. The data will be used to train Anagenex’s AI models to design target-specific compounds, potentially identifying candidates for new medicines.
</div>

Nimbus Therapeutics

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