Model Medicines Raises $4.1 Million to Discover and Advance Therapeutics Using its AI Drug Discovery Platform
The investment will fuel the development of the company’s therapeutic pipeline, including MDL-001, a once-daily, oral, infectious disease therapeutic discovered by the Company’s AI platform, developed in collaboration with Scripps Research and Mount Sinai and moved from concept to IND-enabling studies in less than 12 months for a fraction of the cost associated with traditional drug development, as well as hiring, and further R&D of their AI Drug Discovery Platform
(San Diego, CA) –– Model Medicines, the pharmatech company working to transform the drug discovery and development process and accelerate the creation of life-changing drugs using artificial intelligence and machine learning, today announced the successful close of a $4.1 million oversubscribed financing round with participation from 8VC, Irving Investors, Particle X and Nex Cubed.
Model Medicines will leverage the financing to bolster its internal therapeutic pipeline tackling historically challenging diseases, rare diseases, and diseases of high unmet medical need, in areas including oncology, infectious diseases, and gastric disorders, among others. The company recently leveraged its drug discovery platform to discover MDL-001, a once daily, oral, clinically safe and well-tolerated infectious disease drug candidate. Model Medicines moved the MDL-001 program from concept to IND-enabling studies in less than 12 months for a fraction of the cost associated with traditional drug development. The company also utilized its platform to discover over 30 in vitro disease model validated drug candidates for novel infectious disease targets discovered by Sanford Burnham Prebys’ and world-renown virologist Dr. Sumit Chanda. The latest investment will serve to continue to advance the company’s drug development programs, including advancing in vitro validated candidates to preclinical proof of concept and its lead asset, MDL-001, towards an IND submission.
Commenting on their investment, David Moskowitz, Principal at 8VC said, “We believe Model Medicines has done a fantastic job of thinking about how we change complex problems of biology and create problems of engineering that can be attacked much more expediently.”
Model Medicines’ oversubscribed financing marks the culmination of two years of unprecedented business growth. To date, the company boasts a pipeline of over 30 preclinical and in vitro validated assets for over 10 targets for multiple indications, in addition to announced partnerships with world-renowned drug development organizations such as Scripps Research, Mount Sinai, Sanford Burnham Prebys, and Leo Pharmaceuticals.
“We believe Model Medicines’ first principles cheminformatic approach to AI drug discovery has the potential to significantly change the pace of drug development, driving down costs and speeding up time to market,” said Andrew Kalmar at Irving Investors. “Their platform has the power to reshape the industry.”
Model Medicines will also leverage the current financing to further assemble a world-class team of scientific, clinical, technical, and business leaders and further R&D of their AI/ML drug discovery platform by broadening its functionality and enhancing the efficacy of its discoveries. Recently, Bastiaan Bergman, Ph.D., former Machine Learning Engineer at Atomwise, joined Model Medicines as Director of Engineering. William Brubaker, Ph.D., a multi-decade pharma veteran, who has driven preclinical development at Bayer, Memory Pharma, Achillion, and Pfizer, in addition to leading Bikam Pharma to a successful exit, joined the team to support preclinical asset development strategy. Tim Considine, JD, former COO at Known Medicine, CSO at Nuritas, and SVP Strategic Development at Recursion Pharmaceuticals, joins the team to guide corporate development strategy. Davey Smith, MD, MAS, FACP, FIDSA, Chief of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health, Vice Chair of the Department of Medicine and Florence Seeley Riford Chair in AIDS Research at UCSD, and the global protocol co-chair of ACTIV-2, part of the NIH’s Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) program and Operation Warp Speed, has also joined the Model Medicines team. Dr. Smith will drive clinical strategy and development of MDL-001 and the company’s other infectious disease therapeutic programs.
Daniel Haders II, Ph.D., CEO of Model Medicines, added, “All of our investors share Model Medicines’ vision to discover better drugs, faster, through AI/ML and fundamental chemistry. This financing and these results validate the disruptive nature of Model Medicines approach to drug discovery and the ability of the management team to effectively and efficiently advance drug candidates on the company’s balance sheet.”
ABOUT MODEL MEDICINES
Model Medicines is an AI/ML Drug Discovery company that reduces the time to bring a drug to market by 10+ years and the cost to bring a drug to market by $1B+. Model Medicines is transforming drug discovery by leveraging the historical compendium of drug development data, a drug and disease agnostic discovery platform, and unbiased AI to create Phase II/III ready drug candidates in months rather than years. The company has developed a robust pipeline of patent-pending therapeutics for oncology, infectious diseases, gastric disorders, neurological disorders, and weight disorders. The company is based in San Diego, CA. www.modelmedicines.com
