Colorado-based AI drug discovery specialist Enveda Biosciences has raised $311 million in a Series E financing, a sum rivaling totals secured in some of the biotechnology sector’s larger initial public offerings this year.
In a Wednesday announcement, the startup said it would use the cash to continue advancing its pipeline of drugs through the clinic. Three are in human testing.
Enveda uses artificial intelligence to identify molecules in living organisms like plants and microbes and predict their structure and function. Its system then ranks these molecules by their drug potential, after which Enveda’s chemists turn the most promising ones into drug prospects. In June, Enveda CEO and founder Viswa Colluru told BioPharma Dive that the company is already evaluating 17 programs to emerge from that research.
“As much as the industry has gotten comfortable with the more iterative approaches, the thing that moves the needle for patients and seeds power law returns for companies is first-in-class mechanisms that shift the paradigm,” Colluru said at the time.
Earlier this year, Enveda revealed Phase 1 data from a pair of AI-designed programs for atopic dermatitis and obesity.
One of those programs, ENV-294, is a “molecular glue” that showed the potential to reduce eczema symptoms in a small, early clinical trial. Colluru said that Enveda’s drug, a pill, could help people who don’t respond to approved atopic dermatitis treatments like Dupixent. Phase 2 trials are underway in eczema and asthma.
Alongside that drug is ENV-308, which Enveda has billed as a “pill designed from the chemistry of exercise.” That experimental therapy mimics a hormone, “Lac-Phe,” the body releases after exercise or meals, and displayed an encouraging safety profile in early-stage testing. The company plans to test ENV-308’s ability to help people maintain weight loss after stopping GLP-1 use.
by Gwendolyn Wu
Source: biopharmadive.com
The restructuring forms part of GSK’s “accelerating growth” strategy that was first announced in July. At the time, GSK CEO Luke Miels explained the pharma was seeking 1.9 billion pounds ($2.5 billion) in annual cost-savings by 2029 to fund the program.
Gilead Sciences and Vir Biotechnology have deepened their ties by inking a second deal, which will see the pair join forces to discover and engineer novel T-cell engager (TCE) therapies for solid tumours. Through this collaboration and licensing agreement, Gilead will hand over $90m upfront and up to $45m in potential near-term preclinical milestones.
AstraZeneca has inked a billion-dollar artificial intelligence (AI)-powered drug discovery partnership and licensing deal with insitro, to identify novel targets and therapies for a range of cardiometabolic diseases.
