Superluminal Medicines, Inc., “The Membrane Company” using generative biology, chemistry, and machine learning approaches to revolutionize the speed and accuracy of how medicines are created, today announced the closing of a $120 million Series A funding round.
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RA Capital Management led the investment, with participation from existing investors Insight Partners, NVentures (NVIDIA’s venture capital arm), and Gaingels. New investors Catalio Capital Management, Eli Lilly and Company, and Cooley LLP joined in the financing, and Diamantis Xylas, MD of Catalio joined the Board of Directors.
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The funds will support the progression of Superluminal Medicines’s lead program into clinical development and increase the number of small molecule drug discovery programs focused on high-value G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) targets. The company’s platform rapidly creates candidate-ready compounds by utilizing a unique combination of human understanding, generative biology, chemistry, machine learning, and proprietary big data infrastructure.
“We are grateful to have the continued support of our renowned seed investors and prominent new investors as we rapidly progress our existing high-value programs and expand our pipeline,” said Cony D’Cruz, CEO of Superluminal Medicines. “We are advancing six small molecule programs and continue to build a discovery platform to quickly and efficiently generate therapeutics for any membrane drug target.”
“We continue to be impressed by the speed at which Superluminal has progressed its existing programs for really challenging drug targets,” said Andrew Levin, MD, PhD, Partner and Managing Director at RA Capital Management. “Superluminal’s platform and team have demonstrated success, and we are pleased to continue to support the company’s further growth and development.”
Superluminal’s focus is on membrane receptors that mediate cell signaling and response processes fundamental to human physiology and constitute major classes of drug targets–including GPCRs, ion channels, and transporters. GPCRs are a large family of integral membrane proteins that are drug targets for ~35% of all approved drugs. Yet 70% of the more than 800 GPCRs are undrugged and only 138 have experimental active-state protein structures.
“Our approach allows us to interrogate proteins dynamically, exploring the variety of conformations a protein can adopt, which is critical to identifying specific disease states mediated by membrane receptors,” said Mr. D’Cruz. “By understanding and leveraging these dynamic properties, we can intervene positively within the natural context of the cell and the body.”
The company’s board of directors offers a wealth of industry expertise to guide Superluminal. The board includes Andrew Levin, MD, PhD, Partner and Managing Director at RA Capital Management; Dylan Morris, Managing Director at Insight Partners; Diamantis Xylas MD, Partner and Co-Head of Investments at Catalio Capital Management and Cony D’Cruz, CEO of Superluminal Medicines.
About Superluminal Medicines
Superluminal Medicines is a generative biology and chemistry company developing a differentiated pipeline and revolutionizing the speed and accuracy of how medicine is created. The company’s platform creates candidate-ready compounds with unprecedented speed using a comprehensive combination of deep biology and chemistry expertise, machine learning, and proprietary big data infrastructure. The predict-design-test architecture accurately models protein shapes and designs highly selective compounds to target the precise structural change for therapeutic effect.
Its discovery engine is powered by an industry-leading, pharmacokinetic and toxicology in silico prediction capability. The company’s proprietary pipeline validates its platform with initial programs focused on high-value GPCR targets. Based in Boston, the company is backed by a strong network of investors including RA Capital Management, Insight Partners, NVentures, Catalio Capital Management, Eli Lilly and Company, Gaingels, and Cooley LLP.
