Polaris Partners invests in healthcare and biotechnology companies. Their healthcare portfolio companies' care delivery models include digital health, consumer-centric businesses, patient-provider solutions, data science, and analytics. Their life sciences and biotechnology portfolio companies focus on molecules and platforms, therapeutics, and genomics.

Polaris Partners

EcoR1 Capital is an investment advisory firm focused on the biotech industry. They aim to identify and evaluate innovative therapeutic solutions that can bring significant improvements to patients' lives. Drawing inspiration from the transformative power of the EcoR1 restriction enzyme in the biomedical field, they invest in biotech companies that offer promising new treatments for untreated diseases. EcoR1 Capital recognizes the importance of building upon the innovative contributions of its predecessors in order to continue advancing medical research.

EcoR1 Capital

Alexandria Venture Investments is a venture capital firm that develops work in real estate technology, and healthcare sectors. The company's strategic venture capital platform is Alexandria Venture Investments. Since its inception in 1996, the company has invested in disruptive life science, agrifood tech, and technology companies that are developing transformative new modalities and platforms to meaningfully improve human health.

Alexandria Venture Investments

6 Dimensions Capital was established in May, 2017 through the merger of Frontline BioVentures and WuXi Healthcare Ventures. The two prominent and experienced teams formed a healthcare focused investment firm with an in-depth focus and extensive coverage both in China and global market.

6 Dimensions Capital

Samsara Biocapital provides investment advisory services to help entrepreneurs turn their own ideas and visions into successful companies. Samsara BioCapital, as a results-driven organization, is always looking for ambitious and visionary partners with the drive and flexibility to take their company to the next level. Samsara BioCapital promotes biotech innovation and collaborates with inspiring companies as they develop important and innovative new therapies.

Samsara BioCapital

Leaps by Bayer invests in paradigm-shifting advances in the life sciences and specializes in the fields of biotechnology, agriculture, and scientific breakthrough. The firm's approach is making significant and sustained investments in disruptive biotechnologies that could have the greatest impact on humanity. It was founded in 2015 and headquartered in Leverkusen, Nordrhein-Westfalen.

Leaps by Bayer

ARCH invests primarily in companies co-founded by scientists and entrepreneurs, concentrating on bringing to market innovations in life sciences. They enjoy special recognition as a leader in the successful commercialization of technologies developed at academic research institutions and national laboratories. ARCH has raised ten venture funds totaling over $3 billion and has invested in the venture capital rounds for more than 150 companies. ARCH investors include corporations, pension funds, endowment funds, financial institutions, and private investors.

ARCH Venture Partners

Maverick Ventures is the venture arm of multi-billion dollar investment firm Maverick Capital. Combining the resources of a global firm with the benefits of an agile, focused team, Maverick Ventures supports entrepreneurs from seed through maturity. With over 30 years of early-stage investment experience, the Maverick Ventures team has funded more than 100 companies in the healthcare, software and deep technology sectors. The highly-experienced team of operating executives and investors at Maverick Ventures generally lead rounds, take board seats and work with management to build successful enterprises.

Maverick Ventures

Innovation Endeavors is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in cutting-edge technologies to drive generational change in order to solve problems that matter. The firm’s central investment thesis, the Super Evolution, combines data, computational capacity, and advanced engineering to transform a range of industries including engineering health, climate, computing infrastructure, intelligent software, the physical economy, and more. Its investments include Afresh, AlphaSense, Atom Computing, Color, Gatik, Eikon Therapeutics, Fabric, Homelight, Kong, Formlabs, Panther, Planet, Replica, SoFi, Uber, Upstart, Vicarious Surgical, and more. For more information, visit www.InnovationEndeavors.com.

Innovation Endeavors

Bellco Capital is a private equity firm based in Los Angeles, California.

Bellco Capital

SoftBank Vision Fund is a subsidiary of Softbank Group that specializes in growth capital and social impact investments. Sectors that the fund invests in include the internet of things, artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, communications infrastructure, telecoms, computational biology, biotech, cloud technologies and software, consumer internet businesses, financial technology, and mobile apps. The Fund is designed to be a catalyst for technology progress in anticipation that it will expand SoftBank's capabilities, accelerating progress towards SoftBank 2.0. It aims to invest in businesses and foundational platforms that SoftBank believes to revolutionize and innovate the world tomorrow.

SoftBank Vision Fund

General Catalyst is a venture capital firm that provides early-stage and growth equity investments. The company provides ongoing momentum that accelerates ideas, careers, and companies toward standout success.

General Catalyst

3E Bioventures Capital is a healthcare focused venture investment fund. The core 3E investment team members are all trained in biomedical fields, with healthcare industry experience and years of successful investment or entrepreneurship experience in China. The 3E team combines good global industry perspectives with practical on the ground China experiences, the team’s past investment portfolio companies cover areas such as drug, device, diagnostics, healthcare IT and medical services. 3E Bioventures Capital currently manages both RMB and US Dollar funds, investing in early and growing stage companies in China and overseas. They believe in the huge industry growth and significant investment opportunities in China healthcare space for the next 10 to 20 years. They aim to leverage their healthcare expertise and experience to ride this historic opportunity, to help build successful healthcare ventures and technologies, to generate good return for their investors, and at the same time, to build 3E Bioventures into a significant international healthcare investment brand.

3E Bioventures

NS Investment (NSI) is an affiliated firm of Dong-A ST, a leading pharmaceutical company in the Republic of Korea. NSI was established in 2015 to independently manage venture capital funds and serve institutional investors in Korea. NSI is focused on meeting the financial objective of its fund investors. NSI seeks to link Korean investor capital with innovative companies beyond its domestic boarders and ultimately link entrepreneurs and science across continents.

NS Investment

Mubadala Capital’s Ventures business builds on Mubadala’s 10-year track record of being an active investor in advanced technology. The Ventures platform includes a direct investment business, a fund of funds business and the management and oversight of Mubadala’s partnership with SoftBank, including its U.S. $15 billion LP commitment to the SoftBank Vision Fund.  The Ventures team is based in Abu Dhabi, San Francisco, and London with strong connectivity to European and Chinese venture capital markets through other Mubadala Capital managed vehicles.

Mubadala Capital Ventures

South Korean investment firm, headquartered in Seoul.

Mirae Asset Capital

Dewpoint Therapeutics

Dewpoint Therapeutics is a biotech company developing a drug platform that targets biomolecular condensates. Its technology uses machine-learning-based image analysis tools for visualizing condensates and offers an engine for genetically linked condensatopathy which is a collection of engineered cell lines with trackable condensates to prevent harmful protein sequestration, helping healthcare providers to have access to new therapies to address unmet needs. The company was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.

<div>Dewpoint Therapeutics leverages AI and condensate biology to develop novel therapeutics for a variety of disease indications, including oncology, virology, neuromuscular, and cardiopulmonary. The company&rsquo;s biomolecule condensate approach makes use of condensates&mdash;compartments within cells that perform specific functions&mdash;to understand the root cause of a disease, thereby potentially identifying therapeutics for previously undruggable targets.</div>

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

AI Drug Discovery

Bayer, Dewpoint Therapeutics Sign Deal for Heart-Disease Treatment

Bayer

Announced an option, research and license agreement worth up to $100 million to the US biotech start-up. The partnership will leverage Dewpoint's proprietary platform for biomolecular condensates and Bayer's small molecule compound library to develop new treatments for cardiovascular and gynecological diseases.

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.

<div>
 
 Dewpoint Therapeutics leverages AI and condensate biology to develop novel therapeutics for a variety of disease indications, including oncology, virology, neuromuscular, and cardiopulmonary. The company&rsquo;s biomolecule condensate approach makes use of condensates&mdash;compartments within cells that perform specific functions&mdash;to understand the root cause of a disease, thereby potentially identifying therapeutics for previously undruggable targets.
 
 
 As of March 2024, the company had three internal targeted indications for oncology and neurodegenerative diseases. The company has plans to submit IND applications in 2025/2026. 
 
 
 Key customers and partnerships
 
 
 The company has several partnerships with a number of Big Pharma companies, including 
 <a href="https://media.bayer.com/baynews/baynews.nsf/id/Bayer-Dewpoint-Therapeutics-partner-research-treatments-cardiovascular-gynecological-diseases">
 Bayer 
 </a>
 (November 2019), to develop treatments for multiple cardiovascular and gynecological diseases; 
 <a href="https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200713005079/en/Dewpoint-Therapeutics-Collaborates-with-Merck-to-Evaluate-Novel-Approach-for-the-Treatment-of-HIV">
 Merck
 </a>
 (July 2020), to develop a treatment for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV); 
 <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dewpoint-announces-collaboration-with-pfizer-to-develop-potential-therapies-for-a-rare-form-of-muscular-dystrophy-301201553.html">
 Pfizer
 </a>
 (January 2021), to develop treatments for myotonic dystrophy type 1 (DM1); 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/17262">
 Novo Nordisk
 </a>
 (March 2023) to treat insulin resistance and diabetic complications; 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/21804">
 Chemify
 </a>
 (September 2023), to discover molecules targeting cancer and neurodegeneration; and 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/23589">
 Evotec
 </a>
 to advance oncology programs (November 2023).&nbsp;
 
 
 Funding and financials
 
 
 In February 2022, Dewpoint Therapeutics raised USD 150 million in a 
 <a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8303">
 Series C
 </a>
 funding round led by Softbank Vision Fund 2, with participation from other investors including Leaps by Bayer. The proceeds were earmarked for advancing the company&rsquo;s drug development pipeline toward investigational new drug (IND) status and developing its platforms. 
 
</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

DISRUPTOR_PRESENT

PROMINENT_CATEGORY

<div>
 <ul>
 <li>US-based AI biotechnology company Dewpoint Therapeutics and Germany-based drug discovery company Evotec have collaborated to advance Dewpoint's oncology programs by leveraging Evotec's INDiGO technological platform. The terms and financial details of the agreement have not been disclosed.</li>
 <li>The partnership will leverage Dewpoint's oncology pipeline programs, identified using condensate biology and AI technology alongside Evotec's leading experience in speeding up and de-risking pre-clinical development candidates.&nbsp;</li>
 <li>Evotec's INDiGO platform will help fast-track Dewpoint's oncology treatments toward Investigational New Drug Applications (INDs). The agreement incorporates a risk-sharing arrangement, followed by milestone and royalty payments to Evotec based on the success of the partnership.&nbsp;</li>
 </ul>
</div> 

US-based AI biotechnology company Dewpoint Therapeutics and Germany-based drug discovery company Evotec have partnered to advance Dewpoint's oncology programs. The collaboration will utilize Evotec's INDiGO platform to speed up and de-risk pre-clinical development candidates identified using condensate biology and AI technology. The terms and financial details of the agreement have not been disclosed. The partnership aims to fast-track Dewpoint's oncology treatments towards Investigational New Drug Applications (INDs). The agreement includes a risk-sharing arrangement and milestone and royalty payments to Evotec based on the success of the collaboration.

Dewpoint Therapeutics

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