The company intends to use the funding to advance its current therapeutic programmes into human clinical trials
The funding round was led by global private equity firm Warburg Pincus. (Credit: Arek Socha from Pixabay)
Hong Kong-based Insilico Medicine has raised $255m capital in a Series C financing round to further develop its artificial intelligence (AI) and drug discovery capabilities.
Led by global private equity firm Warburg Pincus, the funding round saw the participation of new investors that include OrbiMed, Mirae Asset Capital, Sequoia Capital China and Sage Partners, among others.
The company’s existing investors have also taken part in the funding round.
Insilico Medicine is engaged in developing AI systems that utilise advanced machine learning techniques to generate new molecular structures with specific properties.
The company has developed an AI-powered drug discovery platform that includes PandaOmics AI-powered novel target discovery engine, Chemistry42 deep generative reinforcement learning system and InClinico that predicts clinical trial outcomes.
Chemistry42 will enable the de-novo design of novel molecules with the desired properties that are not present in the known chemical space.
The company intends to use the funding to advance its current therapeutic programmes into human clinical trials and begin multiple new programmes for novel and difficult targets.
Insilico Medicine founder and CEO Alex Zhavoronkov said: “The artificial intelligence technologies we invented are now demonstrating impressive results in both biology and chemistry delivering valuable and absolutely novel therapeutic assets with high probability of clinical success.
“We are pleased and proud to have gained the recognition and investment from some of the world’s most reputable investors with strong expertise in the biopharmaceutical industry.
“With their support, we will continue to innovate and bring revolutionary solutions to the pharmaceutical industry.”
Insilico Medicine has started offering its technologies for licencing, following the previous round of financing.
According to the company, the technologies will be licenced to major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, which intend to gain AI capabilities and accelerate their drug discovery programmes.
Insilico Medicine claims that some of the top pharmaceutical companies have deployed its Chemistry42, an automated machine learning platform for drug design, following its launch in September last year.
The company also claims to have built a drug discovery team and platform in China.
Following its inception in 2014, Insilico Medicine has raised funding of more than $310m from pharmaceutical, and technology investors.
In December last year, the company partnered with APRINOIA Therapeutics to speed up the discovery of advanced compounds targeting abnormal proteins in the brain associated with neurodegenerative diseases.