Deep from Softbank led the $180 Series C Round of Deep Genomics, with Fidelity and the Canadian Pension Plan joining. Future Ventures led the prior round, and Maryanna joined the board at that time.
“The potential to identify novel targets and treat genetic diseases with programmable RNA therapeutics is one of the most significant opportunities in biotech.” —Deep Nishar, Senior Managing Partner at SoftBank.
From the news today:
“Humans are good at certain aspects of drug development but really, the future of medicine is going to rely on artificial intelligence. Finding the best medicines requires searching through huge amounts of data and dealing with a lot of biological complexities, making accurate predictions, and doing all of that at scale. And that’s just something humans are not good at. Whereas artificial intelligence is the best technology we have. That’s the future of medicine,” CEO Brendan Frey told BioSpace.
They’ve now got 10 programs in the pipeline and expect to have 30 programs in preclinical research by 2023. That kind of speed is unprecedented in the drug discovery world. And that’s the power of AI.
Frey explains that what gives Deep Genomics its edge is its laser focus on RNA biology. In the past year and a half, the world has witnessed a revolution in RNA therapeutics, with mRNA becoming a household word thanks to the technology in some popular COVID-19 vaccines.
“What’s really exciting about RNA therapeutics for all of us is that they are digital. They’re literally a sequence of letters. The sequence of letters determines the activity of the molecule. So, you change the sequence of letters one way and you can target a different gene. You change it another way you increase protein. You change the sequence of letters; you can decrease the protein. You change the sequence of letters another way you can replace the protein with a different protein,” Frey simplified.
For now, Deep Genomics doesn’t have much competition solely focused as they are. A few smaller startups have cropped up, but they’re ahead of the pack in development.
As Frey said, “Medicine has become information. That’s not true for small molecules. That’s not true for biologics or peptides or other modalities. But RNA therapeutics are the case where medicine has become information.”
and the press release
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