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Engine Biosciences Raises $10m to Accelerate AI Drug Discovery

Engine Biosciences Raises $10 Million to Accelerate AI Drug Discovery
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Engine Biosciences (Engine) is a venture-backed technology company whose aim is to enable faster and more effective drug discovery through the use of its artificial intelligence (AI) and genomic network biomedicine platform. The company raised $10 million in funding which was co-led by 6 Dimensions Capital and DHVC (Danhua Capital). Other investors include Nest.Bio Ventures, WuXi AppTec, Baidu Ventures, EDBU, WI Harer, and Pavilion Capital.

The new funding will enable Engine to expand its teams in both San Francisco, California and Singapore, as well as improve its drug discovery platform. Engine’s platform is far more efficient than conventional drug discovery methods. “The biopharmaceutical industry needs better approaches for R & D to deliver therapies to patients in need faster. Legacy approaches mean that in many cases, we still have a weak understanding of what drives disease and correspondingly, how to treat or prevent it,” said Jeffrey Lu, Engine Biosciences Co-Founder and CEO. “Engine’s data-driven platform allows researchers to uncover the critical gene interactions underlying diseases and also test therapies that specifically target these interactions in a faster, cheaper and more precise fashion than currently possible.”

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So far Engine’s technology is being used in four key areas. They are new target discovery, pathway analysis, precision medicine enablement, and drug repositioning. “The lack of insight into complex and multifactorial biological processes within cells contributes to the high failure rate across the drug development cycle.

Engine Biosciences has pioneered a new approach to address this by generating novel data and insights that are highly relevant to the biological process,” said Founding CEO of 6 Dimensions Capital, Dr. Leon Chen. “We expect that the company’s AI platform will lead to insightful information in complex diseases’ pathways that was not previously possible using traditional wet lab centric biology research, and we are excited to support the team with our investment.”

Founding Chairman on DHVC and Stanford Professor, Shoucheng Zhang added: “The breadth and scalability of Engine’s technology platform and proprietary data generation capabilities present a unique opportunity to build significant data leadership and impact many areas within the huge pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. We are excited to be playing a part in making it possible.” Already Engine has effective programs in skin, cancer, autoimmune, and neurodegeneration, and this investment could be just what the startup needs to expand this further.

Source Engine Biosciences