投资企业新闻
启明星 | Insilico Medicine B轮融资3700万美元，启明创投领投 | Bilingual
2019/09/10
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启明创投
AI药物研发公司Insilico Medicine日前完成了3700万美元的B轮融资，启明创投领投。
Insilico Medicine是利用新一代人工智能技术进行药物发现的领军企业。本轮募集的资金将用于产业化其小分子设计平台以及靶点发现平台，组建具有丰富制药行业经验的管理团队，通过与其他大型制药公司合作的模式进一步开发其在癌症、纤维化、NASH、免疫学和中枢神经系统疾病等方面的产品管线。
Insilico Medicine开发和验证了一套可供生成模型以及机器学习的算法，用来设计生成小分子靶向药物。同时公司还能通过其靶点发现平台找到在癌症、纤维化、NASH、免疫学和中枢神经系统疾病等方面的靶点。在商业模式上，Insilico Medicine通过与早期的生物技术公司以及大型生物制药公司的合作来推动数字时代医药行业的发展。
“我们很高兴能够领投Insilico Medicine的本轮融资，”启明创投主管合伙人梁颕宇（Nisa Leung）女士说，“Insilico是人工智能药物开发赛道的行业领导者，我们期待公司能利用其先进的技术缩短药物开发的时间，并且与启明创投的其他被投企业产生协同效应。”
Insilico Medicine与生物技术公司、制药公司和学术机构开展了密切的合作。自成立以来，该公司在专业期刊及人工智能会议上发表或联合发表了逾70篇论文。值得一提的是，Insilico Medicine最近在《自然》子刊Nature Biotechnology上发表最新研究论文，其主要内容是展示用生成模型以及增强学习算法设计出来小分子靶向药物，并且在细胞和动物模型上验证了设计出来的分子的活性和初步药代动力学特性。
Insilico Medicine, a pioneer in next-generation artificial intelligence technology for drug discovery, recently completes a $37 million funding round led by Qiming Venture Partners.
The Series B funding will be used to commercialize the validated generative chemistry and target identification technology. The company will also build up a senior management team with the experience in the pharmaceutical industry, further develop its pipeline in cancer, fibrosis, NASH, immunology and CNS for the purposes of partnering with the pharmaceutical companies on specific therapeutic programs.
Insilico Medicine has developed and validated acomprehensive drug discovery pipeline which includes a state-of-the-art molecular generator utilizing multiple proprietary generative and reinforcement learning technologies. The company identified promising targets in a variety of therapeutic modalities including cancer, fibrosis, NASH, immunology and CNS. Through a network of joint ventures, partnerships with early-stage biotechnology and large pharmaceutical companies, Insilico Medicine is powering the new digital-age biopharmaceutical industry.
"We are excited to lead the current round of financing in Insilico Medicine," says Nisa Leung, Managing Partner of Qiming Venture Partners. "The company is an industry leader in the AI-powered drug discovery vertical. We look forward to seeing it shortening the time for drug discovery and creating synergies with our portfolio companies."
The company is powering a network of biotechnology, pharmaceutical companies and academic institutions. Since inception the company published or co-published over 70 papers in peer-reviewed journals and artificial intelligence conferences. In its latest research paper published in Nature Biotechnology Insilico demonstrated animal validation of novel molecules generated using the deep generative tensorial reinforcement learning models in human cells and in animals.
