Ignota Labs secures £5.5m in seed funding to revive failed pharmaceutical drugs
The seed round was co-led by Montage Ventures and AIX Ventures to fund asset expansion and clinical trials.
Ignota Labs is a Cambridge-based biotechnology firm that applies artificial intelligence and machine learning to turnaround failed drug candidates. Its platform identifies the root causes of drug toxicity to revive abandoned pharmaceutical assets.
Ignota Labs has raised £5.5m in a seed funding round co-led by Montage Ventures and AIX Ventures. The round also drew participation from Modi Ventures, Blue Wire Capital, and Gaingels. The company intends to direct the capital towards expanding its pipeline by acquiring distressed assets and advancing its lead asset, a PDE9A inhibitor, into early-stage clinical trials.
Drug safety failures account for more than half of clinical trial halts, representing a substantial loss for the pharmaceutical sector annually. Ignota Labs seeks to mitigate this by deploying deep learning, cheminformatics, and bioinformatics to pinpoint the origins of drug toxicity. The firm has already in-licensed its first asset, a metabolic health drug, and aims to scale its recovery operations.
The latest financing follows rapid progress by the Cambridge-based company since its inception, including peer-reviewed research publications validating its SAFEPATH platform. With backing from a syndicate of specialist investors, the team aims to accelerate the delivery of re-engineered therapies to patients.
From the founder
"We're thrilled to have the support of this leading investor syndicate in our mission to rescue promising yet struggling drugs with our technology. Traditional safety assessments reveal when something is wrong, but our platform goes a step further by identifying the exact molecular and biological issues to provide actionable insights to re-engineer and revive therapies. With this funding, we can expand our efforts to salvage distressed assets and accelerate the delivery of life-saving therapies to patients."
Sam Windsor
CEO and Co-Founder at Ignota Labs
Investor perspective
"Ignota Labs is solving one of the most critical challenges in drug development, rescuing promising therapies that would otherwise be abandoned due to safety issues. Their SAFEPATH platform represents a groundbreaking approach, combining cutting-edge AI with deep scientific expertise to address the root causes of drug toxicity. We believe Ignota Labs has the ability to enable more drugs to make it to the clinic and get to the patients who need them."
Todd Kimmel
Founder and Managing Partner, Montage Ventures
Use of funds
- 01Continue product development
- 02Fund research and development
Investors
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About the company
Ignota Labs
Ignota Labs uses artificial intelligence to turnaround failed pharmaceutical drugs.