The investment supports Schrödinger's research and developmental efforts to augment the capabilities of its computational platform for drug discovery and materials research.
Financing was co-led by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Trust, and WuXi AppTec's corporate venture fund. Deerfield Management, Baron, Qiming Venture Partners, and GV (formerly Google Ventures), also participated.
The “physics-based” modeling platform is used to improve target discovery, compound design, and lead optimization and is frequently used externally. The financing, according to the spokesperson, will allow for a “significant expansion” of the company’s research and development team.
The spokesperson told us that the software platform is used by “nearly all major pharma companies around the world to accelerate and improve their drug discovery.”
“Schrödinger receives substantial annual revenue from licensing the software platform; we also deploy it with our partners and with our own internal drug hunting team to build a robust pipeline of therapeutic candidates,” the spokesperson added.
External use of software platform
Most recently, Schrödinger entered an agreement with TB Alliance to use its computational platform to advance the identification of bacterial inhibitors for tuberculosis therapies.
Additionally, Schrödinger has collaborated with SPARC for research into therapeutics for neurodegenerative conditions.
Schrödinger also recently launched a new drug discovery project with WuXi AppTec: Faxian Therapeutics. The new company provides molecular simulations and enterprise software solutions. Facilitated by Schrödinger’s LiveDesign platform, Faxian is considered to be a ‘virtual global collaboration.’
