Sofinnova Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in the life sciences sector, from seed to later-stage. The firm manages over €2 billion of assets dedicated to life science investing and actively partners with ambitious entrepreneurs as a lead or cornerstone investor to develop transformative innovations that have the potential to positively impact its collective future. It invests in start-ups, early-stage companies, corporate spin-offs, and occasionally turnaround situations with a focus on Life Sciences (Biopharmaceuticals / Biotech, Medical Devices, Industrial Biotechnology). Sofinnova Partners proactively sources deals, takes a lead role, is most often the first institutional investor in Round A financings, and leads its portfolio companies until exit. They sit on the boards of their portfolio companies and play an active role from the formation phase alongside entrepreneurs. It was headquartered in Paris, Ile-de-France in 1972.

Sofinnova Partners

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

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

Tekla Capital Management LLC is a registered investment adviser based in Boston, Massachusetts, and is currently the investment adviser for two closed-end equity funds, H&Q Healthcare Investors and H&Q Life Sciences Investors. The Funds invest in growth equities, both public and private, in the healthcare and life sciences industries.

Tekla Capital Management

Brace Pharma Capital is a strategic investment company formed by EMS S/A, the largest pharmaceutical company in Brazil, and high net worth biotech investors. We invest in innovative, life changing therapies for diseases with a high degree of unmet medical need and insufficient treatment options.

Brace Pharma

The MRL Venture Fund is the Cambridge, MA – based independent venture capital investment group within Merck Research Laboratories, the R&D division of Merck & Co., Inc. MRL Ventures creates and/or invests in seed and early-stage therapeutics companies, based on translatable breakthrough science, with the potential to deliver highly differentiated new medicines to improve human health.

MRL Ventures Fund

Solasta Ventures is investing in healthcare and life sciences for a brighter future.

Solasta Ventures

Pivotal bioVenture Partners is a $300 million life sciences venture capital fund established in 2017. They invest in privately held North American and European companies focused on innovative therapeutic products and platforms to address major unmet medical needs. They invest at all stages in a company’s evolution, from company creation through mid and late stage clinical development. Their team brings diverse experience in venture capital, company building, and drug discovery and development to the table in working with entrepreneurs to advance their businesses.

Pivotal bioVenture Partners

LSP BioVentures is a  venture capital fund focused on opportunities in the life science arena. Based in Cambridge (MA) in the USA; the fundâ€™s management combines the strength of its parent company,  [Life Sciences Partners Venture Capital firm](/financial-organization/life-sciences-partners) in Europe and a dedicated team of experts in the USA.

LSP BioVentures

Revelation Partners invests broadly across healthcare sectors with a focus on commercial companies with proven business models or companies with novel technologies that have clear clinical and regulatory pathways. They actively invest in the following healthcare verticals - medical devices, biopharmaceuticals, healthcare IT and healthcare services.

Revelation Partners

B Capital Group backs brash entrepreneurs building technology companies. With offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Singapore, B Capital Group focuses on pioneering start-ups that are ready to scale across the global stage. Partnering with Boston Consulting Group, and its incubation arm BCG Digital Ventures, B Capital delivers access to top corporations to match start-ups with the world's most powerful CEOs, platforms, and brands. B Capital Group's unique multinational presence, combined with deep industry expertise, has built a portfolio of B2B and B2B2C startups that are transforming large traditional industries across borders and geographies. It helps startups navigate business challenges, raise capital, and attract talented leadership at key points of their journeys to scale.

B Capital

Monashee Investment Management is a hedge fund.

Monashee Investment Management

CaaS Capital Management is investing across all regions, industries, and capital structures.  CaaS feels strongly in providing liquidity — Capital as a Service — to our partners and pursues this objective with great vigor and energy. CaaS uses a unique combination of fundamental and quantitative inputs when making investment decisions.

CaaS Capital Management

Pavilion Capital operates as a private equity firm under Temasek Holdings. Pavilion Capital invests primarily in privately owned firms in North Asia.

Pavilion Capital

HotSpot Therapeutics

HotSpot Therapeutics is a biotech startup that focuses on the development of allosteric therapies targeting regulatory sites on proteins. It develops a therapy platform to discover medicines and provide proper treatment to identify hotspots and locate pathway treatments for cancer, metabolic and rare diseases, leverages a database of hotspot structures, harnessing the power of data science in its multidisciplinary approach to drug discovery, and helps patients to get treatment against several diseases. HotSpot Therapeutics was founded in 2017 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

<div>HotSpot Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing allosteric therapies for undrugged or poorly drugged targets. It focuses on targeting regulatory sites or pockets in proteins referred to as &ldquo;natural hotspots&rdquo; that have the ability to control cellular protein function. This approach is reportedly an overlooked method by drug developers, and so, the company boasts to be the first to follow it.&nbsp;</div>

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

AI Drug Discovery

HotSpot Therapeutics Presents Additional Phase 1 Biomarker Data on Novel CBL-B Inhibitor HST-1011 at 2024 Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer Annual Meeting

<div>
 
 HotSpot Therapeutics is a biotechnology company developing allosteric therapies for undrugged or poorly drugged targets. It focuses on targeting regulatory sites or pockets in proteins referred to as &ldquo;natural hotspots&rdquo; that have the ability to control cellular protein function. This approach is reportedly an overlooked method by drug developers, and so, the company boasts to be the first to follow it.&nbsp;
 
 
 The company leverages its platform Smart Allostery, which entails a broad range of technologies that combines AI, structure-function, and tailored chemistry, along with a chemical library tailored for hotspots.&nbsp;
 
 
 As of March 2024, the company had three drug candidates in its internal pipeline with two lead candidates, namely 1) HST-1011 to treat solid tumors in Phase I clinical trials and 2) HST-1021, a precision oncology candidate in the IND-enabling stage.
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company has entered several key partnerships including 1) Caris Life Sciences to develop its pipeline of precision medicine drugs and companion diagnostic tests (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7709">
 January 2022
 </a>
 ), 2) Excelra to leverage its Global Online Structure Activity Relationship Database (GOSTAR) platform to identify new drug targets (
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/10722">
 May 2022
 </a>
 ), and 3) AbbVie to develop the first small-molecule IRF5 inhibitor for treating autoimmune diseases (
 <a href="https://news.abbvie.com/2022-12-06-AbbVie-Launches-Strategic-Collaboration-with-HotSpot-Therapeutics-to-Further-Expand-Immunology-Pipeline">
 December 2022
 </a>
 ).&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/7003">
 November 2021
 </a>
 , HotSpot Therapeutics raised USD 100 million in a Series C funding round led by Pivotal BioVenture Partners. New investors, including Revelation Partners and Pavilion Capital, as well as existing investors Atlas Venture and Sofinnova Partners, also participated in the round. The funds were used to further develop its platform and advance its clinical pipeline.
 
</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.

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.

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

HotSpot Therapeutics

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