Weekly TechBio News 📰
Next-Generation AI Platforms Transforming Drug Discovery
Valinor Discovery recently exited stealth mode to announce its ML-powered simulation platform aimed at derisking drug development through virtual patient modeling. The company is generating data from proprietary matched multi-omics and oncology-focused clinical assay datasets to create virtual patient profiles that can significantly accelerate clinical drug development processes (Valinor Discovery Launches to Simulate Drug Performance in Virtual Patients).
According to Josh Pacini, Co-Founder and CEO of Valinor Discovery, 📣 “the company was founded on the belief that with enough patient-derived data, ML will transform clinical drug development from a slow, costly, and high-risk undertaking into a streamlined process where therapeutic efficacy against clinical endpoints has already been simulated computationally". This approach fundamentally changes how potential therapeutics are evaluated before entering costly clinical trials.
Furthermore the collaboration 🤝 between Valinor Discovery and the Computational Health Center at Helmholtz Munich Germany aims to establish reliable standards for evaluating drug perturbation models across different drug modalities and therapeutic areas, addressing a crucial need for validation in the biotech industry as AI applications proliferate. The company is also collaborating with LatchBio (to offer a fully compliant, hosted web portal that gives Valinor customers easy access to their model and supporting plug-and-play preclinical and clinical workflow automation tools), as well as the Montgomery Lab at Stanford Medicine in the US (renowned for its contributions to the Genotype-Tissue Expression, GTEx, project and transcriptomic studies of complex disease).
Similarly, PharmAla Biotech in Toronto Canada has just launched ✴️Phenesafe AI✴️, a technology platform specifically designed for discovering novel substituted phenethylamine molecules (organic compounds, natural monoamine alkaloid, and trace amine, which act as a central nervous system stimulants in humans). The platform integrates various tools, including a QSAR model developed in partnership with the University of Windsor, to identify specific neurological receptors and transporters, screen molecules for synthesis feasibility, and assist in patent development. This specialized approach demonstrates how AI implementations are becoming increasingly targeted toward specific chemical classes and therapeutic applications, allowing for more efficient discovery of compounds with desirable properties (PharmAla Biotech Launches Phenesafe AI Drug Discovery Platform for Novel Phenethylamines).
The Canadian biotechnology company is dedicated to the domestic research & development, and sourcing of clinical-grade LaNeo™ MDMA (an empathogen–entactogenic drug with stimulant and minor psychedelic properties) and novel MDXX compounds in service to the scientific research community and commercial use in select jurisdictions.
Rubedo Life Sciences has developed its proprietary ✴️ALEMBIC™ AI-driven drug discovery platform✴️ that synergizes sophisticated computational algorithms with chemistry expertise. The platform enables the identification of specific druggable targets related to cellular aging 🧓 and senescence, allowing the development of therapeutics that selectively target pathologic cells while preserving healthy ones. This biology-focused approach represents how AI can address fundamental biological processes underlying multiple age-related diseases rather than merely treating symptoms (Rubedo Life Sciences’ Drug Discovery Platform, ALEMBIC™, Helps Identify Senescent or “Zombie” Neurons in New Study Linking Neuropathic Pain and Aging).
In their study just published (Aging and injury drive neuronal senescence in the dorsal root ganglia), researchers found that injury to peripheral axons of dorsal root ganglion (DRG) neurons results in sensory dysfunction, such as pain 😖. This occurs at higher rates in aged individuals. Furthermore, cellular senescence is common to both aging and injury, and contributes to this sensory dysfunction. Elimination of senescent cells results in pain improvement, indicating a potential target for new pain therapeutics.
Back on January 16, 2025 Rubedo Life Sciences announced its clinical development plans for its lead candidate RLS-1496, a first-in-class 🥇 GPX4 modulator that targets aging cells and surrounding tissues (Rubedo Life Sciences Announces Clinical Development Plans for Lead Candidate RLS-1496, a First-in-Class GPX4 Modulator Targeting Aging Cells and Surrounding Tissues). The Phase 1 clinical trial for RLS-1496 (a first-in-class treatment for inflammatory skin disease), will begin in Spring 2025 in the Netherlands. On April 19, 2024, Rubedo brought in $40M in a series A financing round co-led by Khosla Ventures and Ahren Innovation Capital.
Biomarker-Driven Precision Medicine
The integration of biomarker identification with AI is creating new opportunities for precision medicine approaches. Alto Neuroscience demonstrated this potential with their positive Phase 2 study results for ALTO-300 in major depressive disorder 🖤(MDD). The company successfully identified a machine learning-derived EEG biomarker that could predict patient response to their treatment. Patients characterized by this specific EEG biomarker showed significantly greater improvement in depression symptoms compared to those without the biomarker profile, validating Alto's biomarker-driven approach to patient selection. This represents the third positive Phase 2 readout leveraging Alto's ✴️Precision Psychiatry Platform™✴️, further validating the potential of using biomarkers to match patients with appropriate treatments (Biomarker Mechanism for ALTO-300 in Precision Psychiatry Study Proves Promising in MDD Treatment, According to Amit Etkin, MD, PhD).
Alto Neuroscience (Leading Innovation in Psychiatric Treatment) is working to treat neuropsychiatric diseases with its AI-enabled biomarker platform, which combines rich sources of information on patients’ brain activity and behaviour to develop medicines for target populations. Novartis-backed Alto Neuroscience has raised $100M to date, and has two assets: 📌 ALTO-100 for major MDD and post-traumatic stress disorder, and 📌 ALTO-300 for MDD, both in clinical studies.
Strategic Collaborations Accelerating Innovation
Strategic partnerships have emerged as a key driver in advancing AI-powered drug discovery platforms. SparX Biopharmaceutical Corp recently announced a research agreement with Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America to advance innovative antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) programs. The collaboration focuses on an ADC against a first-in-class immune cell target with potential to serve as a universal tumor-targeting strategy across multiple cancer types. This partnership demonstrates how the two companies are combining specialized expertise SparX's nanobody-based therapeutics and AI-driven research capabilities with Mitsubishi Tanabe's development experience-to accelerate therapeutic innovation (SparX Biopharmaceutical Corp Announces Research Agreement with Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma America to Advance Novel Antibody-Drug Conjugates).
SparX Biopharmaceutical Corp. is a research-based development-stage biopharmaceutical company, dedicated to the mission of “strengthening human immunity using robust antibody therapies” through the discovery and development of innovative immuno-oncology agents. Equipped with big data analytical techniques, such as machine learning algorithms, SparX extracts potential interactions from large volumes of complex multi-dimensional public information. Mechanistic pharmacological analyses coupled with in vitro 🧫 and in vivo 🐁 evaluations using the syngeneic, transgenic and humanized mouse models, enables SparX’s focus on developing novel or best-in-class therapeutics demonstrating substantial advantages over existing therapies.
Quiver Bioscience and QurAlis have also partnered to develop a novel gene-targeted therapy for Fragile X syndrome, combining Quiver's proprietary ✴️"Genomic Positioning System" (GPS)✴️ drug discovery platform with QurAlis' expertise in precision medicines for neurological diseases. Quiver's GPS platform leverages scalable human neuronal electrophysiology data alongside artificial intelligence and machine learning to uncover new insights into disease biology. This collaboration targets a significant unmet need, as Fragile X syndrome affects approximately 87,000 individuals in the United States and currently lacks any approved disease-modifying therapies (Quiver Bioscience and QurAlis Announce Research Collaboration to Advance Novel Therapeutic Approach for Fragile X Syndrome).
On July 5, 2023, Q-State Biosciences (2013, US) was acquired by Exponential Capital Management and rebranded 🥂 to Quiver Bioscience as part of the company's continued evolution. Quiver utilizes scalable human disease models, novel AI and a best-in-world platform to drive therapeutic discovery with the mission of creating transformational medicines for patients living with disorders of the brain. The Quiver platform has been built and validated and is now poised to deliver the best possible medicines in areas of critical need such as chronic pain, neurodevelopmental disorders and neurodegeneration. At Quiver they already had a collaboration with QurAlis (neuro pioneers) for an ALS Target (Small Molecule/ASO).
Clinical Progress and Financial Landscape
The clinical application of AI-driven drug discovery is beginning to demonstrate tangible results. Lantern Pharma Inc, Precision Oncology Medicine (NASDAQ, LTRN), reported significant progress in its clinical programs during Q1 2025, with narrowing financial losses compared to the previous year. The company expects to complete ✅ its Phase 1a clinical trial for LP-184 by the end of June 2025 with 62-65 patients enrolled across various solid tumor types. Lantern's approach leverages its proprietary ✴️RADR® AI platform✴️ to advance multiple clinical programs, including lead candidates 📍LP-300 for non-small cell lung cancer (data readout from the HARMONIC™ Trial anticipated in Q3 2025) and 📍LP-184 for solid tumors. This integration of AI throughout the development pipeline illustrates how companies are implementing computational approaches across multiple phases of drug development (Lantern Pharma Reports First Quarter 2025 Financial Results and Business Updates).
Technical Innovations Driving the Field
Viva Biotech has highlighted multiple applications of AI across the drug discovery process, including preliminary research, target discovery, compound synthesis, compound screening, new indication discovery, crystal prediction, and patient recruitment (✴️AIDD Platform✴️). These diverse applications significantly shorten R&D time, reduce costs, and increase R&D success rates, creating opportunities for pharmaceutical companies to accumulate high-quality data and solve specific problems in deterministic environments (Drug R&D Logic, Enabling One-Stop Innovative Drug Discovery).
Viva Biotech (01873.HK) established in 2008 together with its subsidiary, Langhua Pharma, they offer their worldwide pharmaceutical and biotech partners a one-stop integrated CMC (Chemical, Manufacturing, and Control) service from preclinical to commercial manufacturing. Additionally, Viva embedded an equity for service (EFS) model to high potential startups to address unmet medical needs.
Renovaro Launches Augusta: AI-Powered Precision Neurology Platform
Renovaro Inc (NASDAQ: RENB) has introduced ✴️Augusta✴️, an advanced AI platform designed to transform neurology by enabling precision diagnostics and treatment for complex neurological disorders. By integrating multimodal data (imaging, genomics, clinical records), Augusta aims to accelerate research and personalize therapies for conditions like Alzheimer's, Parkinson’s, and epilepsy (Renovaro Launches Augusta, an AI-Powered Precision Neurology Platform).
Enedra Secures Funding to Advance AI-Driven Cancer Platform
Enedra, a biotech startup, has raised new funding to develop its AI-powered platform focused on cancer drug discovery and development. The technology identifies novel targets and optimizes therapeutic candidates with high specificity, aiming to reduce time-to-market for oncology treatments (Enedra secures funding to advance AI-driven cancer platform).
The London 🎡 based drug discovery company, Enedra Therapeutics, has secured venture financing and non-dilutive funding through UKRI’s Innovate UK Future Economy Investor Partnerships programme to support the development of next-generation precision therapies for advanced, genetically heterogeneous cancers. The financing round was supported by KU Leuven’s Centre for Drug Design and Discovery (CD3), o2h Ventures, and follow-on investor Cancer Research Horizons, all of which in addition bring significant experience in target validation and drug discovery and development (Enedra Therapeutics secures financing).
Pathos’ $365M Series D Highlights Confidence in AI Drug Discovery
Pathos AI raised 💰 $365M in a Series D round, underscoring strong investor belief in AI’s transformative role in drug development. The company focuses on identifying novel pathways and designing small molecules using machine learning (Pathos’ $365 million Series D shows faith in AI-driven drug discovery).
This comes shortly after it started collaborating with AstraZeneca and Tempus on its foundation model, which is being trained on massive datasets spanning everything from text and omics data to medical imaging. In particular on April 24, 2025, AstraZeneca, Tempus and Pathos AI signed a multi-year agreement to develop a large-scale multimodal DL model (AstraZeneca enters $200m AI cancer pact with Tempus and Pathos) that will be used to extract biological and clinical insights, identify novel drug targets, and support the development of new cancer therapies.
New York 🗽 based Pathos is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on re-engineering drug development, leveraging the power of advanced AI technologies to bring precision medicines to market through partnerships with biopharmaceutical companies. The company was founded by Lefkofsky, who is CEO of Chicago biotech firm Tempus, as well as Fukushima, who holds the chief operating officer role at Tempus. ✴️PathOS Platform™✴️ is fueled by petabytes of real-world oncology data and patient-derived functional genomic data to identify and validate compelling biology that would have otherwise gone undetected using traditional methods.
Nine Promising Small Molecule Drug Discovery Companies to Watch in 2025
This list highlights emerging firms leveraging computational biology to revolutionize small molecule 💊 discovery (Nine promising small molecule drug discovery companies to look out for in 2025) including:
⚓Ascentage Pharma (Is Ascentage Pharma (AAPG) the Best Performing Healthcare Stock to Buy Now?)
⚓858 Therapeutics (858 Therapeutics Announces $50 Million Series B Financing)
⚓Iktos (Iktos makes Makya drug design AI accessible on AWS Marketplace)
⚓Inductive Bio (Inductive Bio Secures $25M Series A to Transform Drug Discovery with its Collaborative AI Platform)
⚓Insilico Medicine (Insilico Fast-Tracks First AI-Designed TNIK Inhibitor Into Phase III For IPF)
⚓Light Horse Therapeutics (Light Horse Therapeutics Enters Into Strategic Collaboration With Novartis)
⚓Maze Therapeutics (Maze Therapeutics Reports First Quarter 2025 Financial Results and Reiterates Upcoming Milestones)
⚓Tasca Therapeutics (Tasca Therapeutics Launches with $52 Million Series A Financing to Develop Small Molecule Inhibitors for Multiple Oncology Indications)
⚓Vivace Therapeutics (Vivace nabs $35M to push mesothelioma candidate into pivotal trial)
Nanyang Biologics & Precisya Global Inc Collaborate on Natural Compounds for Genetic Diseases
Nanyang Biologics and Precisya Global Inc have formed a strategic partnership to validate natural compounds against genetic disease markers, combining traditional medicine insights with modern AI-driven analytics (Nanyang Biologics and Precisya Global Inc Announce Strategic Collaboration to Validate Natural Compounds Against Genetic Disease Markers).
Precisya (formerly Transceptar) is a world leader in precision health leveraging the world's largest genomic big data aggregated over the last 12 years.
Nanyang Biologics (2019) is a transformative biotech company harnessing the power of natural compounds (Medicinal Plants 🌿 from South East Asia known for chronic diseases treatment and prevention) and pioneering an AI Drug Discovery Pipeline, restoring among other things also the microbiome 🦠. Their platform begins with their proprietary ML model, leveraging protein language models from: extensive amino acid sequence libraries and the ChEMBL library, NTU's natural product library and various commercial compounds. This strategy skips the initial need for 3D structural data, accelerating the shortlisting of potential small molecules, that afterwards undergo a comprehensive analysis using 1️⃣ Alphafold2 and Autodock Vina for molecular docking, and their proprietary 2️⃣ Drug-Target Interaction Graph Neural Network (DTIGN), which refines biological activity predictions based on molecule-protein interaction data. This process swiftly yields thousands of hits, which are meticulously assessed for open source ADME-Tox, analyzed through molecular dynamics simulations and subjected to rigorous preclinical validation.
Azenta Life Sciences: Accelerating Breakthroughs & Therapies
Azenta Life Sciences continues to support biopharma innovation through its integrated solutions in sample management, genomics, and lab automation. Its technologies underpin many AI-driven platforms (AZENTA LIFE SCIENCES AND FORM BIO ANNOUNCE STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP TO ADVANCE AAV GENE THERAPY DEVELOPMENT) by providing high-quality data infrastructure essential for training predictive models (Azenta Life Sciences: Accelerating Breakthroughs & Therapies). Azenta, was founded in 1978, and is based in Chelmsford, Massachusetts, United States. The company is a provider of life sciences services including genomics, cryogenic storage, automation, and informatics.