Deep Apple Therapeutics, a San Francisco, CA-based company that discovers novel small molecule therapeutics for high-value targets through virtual screening of AI-generated virtual libraries, raised $52M in Series A funding.
The round was led by Apple Tree Partners.
The company intends to use the funds to expand operations and its development efforts.
Led by Spiros Liras, Ph.D., founding CEO, Deep Apple leverages a discovery engine that combines ensemble cryo-EM, deep learning, and molecular docking screens of ultra-large libraries to move from target identification to lead optimization in less than 12 months to pursue biological target signaling inaccessible to conventional discovery approaches. Its discovery engine is broadly applicable across disease areas and is particularly suited to expedited hit-finding against integral membrane proteins.
The company currently is advancing multiple programs focused on GPCR modulators, a proven target class with applications in metabolic disorders, inflammation, immunology, and endocrine diseases.
Deep Apple’s drug discovery engine builds upon leading expertise and technologies from its academic co-founders: Georgios Skiniotis, Ph.D., of Stanford University, a world leader in cryo-EM and GPCR structural biology; Brian Shoichet, Ph.D., of the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), a pioneer of virtual screening; and John Irwin, Ph.D., of UCSF, the computational library authority who created the widely used ZINC free virtual library of more than 10 billion synthesizable compounds.
FinSMEs
15/12/2023