Genesis Therapeutics expands AI drug discovery collaboration with $200M funding
This forms part of an expanded partnership to enhance Genesis’ AI-powered drug discovery platform, GEMS (Genesis Exploration of Molecular Space).
The new investment follows NVentures' participation in Genesis' $200 million Series B funding in August 2023.
This strengthened collaboration is aimed at advancing Genesis' capabilities to tackle complex and previously undruggable disease targets through optimized AI technologies.The collaboration centers on advancing Genesis’ computational efficiency, with NVIDIA bringing specialized expertise to enhance the GEMS platform’s neural network performance, particularly in handling 3D geometric data critical for drug discovery.
One area of focus is the optimization of equivariant neural networks, a technology used for processing 3D data structures, such as those of proteins and small molecules, which are pivotal in developing therapies based on a drug’s structural alignment with biological targets.
Evan Feinberg, CEO of Genesis, highlighted the significance of the collaboration, he said: “Combining our expertise and resources with NVIDIA’s brings us closer to our vision of using AI to create breakthrough therapies for high unmet needs. Addressing undruggable targets requires pioneering algorithms and innovative infrastructure, and with NVIDIA's support, we can expand our field-leading capabilities in structure-driven drug design.”
Genesis’ GEMS platform, which uses predictive AI to explore the vast molecular space for potential drug candidates, is designed to streamline the discovery process and open new possibilities for tackling challenging disease targets. NVIDIA’s NVentures team sees potential in Genesis’ AI innovations to enable more efficient discovery of novel chemical pathways, identifying viable compounds that might be missed by traditional methods.
According to Mohamed “Sid” Siddeek, corporate vice president at NVIDIA and head of NVentures, said: “AI serves as a transformative tool in the search for therapies to address serious diseases. Genesis’ AI-driven platform and our collaborative computational advancements will help bring forth new generative and predictive AI approaches, broadening the search for untapped chemical pathways to accelerate drug candidate identification.”
By working together, Genesis and NVIDIA aim to not only speed up discovery but also to make AI-driven design more accessible for new drug classes. Genesis hopes this joint effort will strengthen its pipeline as it continues to advance its mission of targeting diseases that lack effective treatments.
