Insilico Medicine raises $255m in series C financing
By Cheng Yu | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2021-06-22 20:36
Insilico Medicine, a global company in end-to-end artificial intelligence for target discovery, small molecule chemistry and clinical development, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $255 million in its series C financing led by Warburg Pincus.
The new fundraising joined current investors, including Qiming Venture Partners, Pavilion Capital, Eight Roads Ventures, Lilly Asia Ventures, Sinovation Ventures, BOLD Capital Partners, Formic Ventures and Baidu Ventures.
Investors including CPE, OrbiMed, Mirae Asset Capital, B Capital Group, Deerfield Management, Maison Capital, Lake Bleu Capital, President International Development Corporation, Sequoia Capital China and Sage Partners also were newly attracted into the round.
According to the company, the financing will be used to progress Insilico Medicine's current therapeutic programs into human clinical trials, initiate multiple new programs for novel and difficult targets, and further develop its AI and drug discovery capabilities.
"The artificial intelligence technologies we invented are now demonstrating impressive results in both biology and chemistry, delivering valuable and absolutely novel therapeutic assets with a 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," said Alex Zhavoronkov, founder and CEO of Insilico Medicine.
Insilico Medicine demonstrated the first case of AI identifying a novel target for a major pulmonary disease, generating novel molecules for that novel target, and completing the preclinical experiments required to nominate a preclinical candidate in under 18 months.
Fred Hassan, former chairman and CEO of Schering Plough Corporation, commented on behalf of Warburg Pincus that AI and machine learning is a powerful tool to revolutionize the drug discovery process and bring life-changing therapies to patients faster than ever before.
"Insilico fits strongly with our strategy of investing in the best-in-class innovators in healthcare and we will continue to support the company's ambitious vision of transforming drug discovery through harnessing AI and machine learning," Hassan said.
