Aqemia Secures $38 Million in Funding with Sanofi's Support to Advance AI-Driven Drug Discovery

Dec 11, 2024 18:13 CST Updated 18:13

Aqemia

Innovative Drug Developer

Cathay Innovation

Early-Stage Venture Capital Firms

Eurazeo

Multi-Industry Investors

Elaia

Independent Venture Capital Fund

Bpifrance Large Ventures

Venture Capital Firms

Wendel Growth

Strategic Investment Institutions

Recently, Aqemia, a French biotechnology startup, announced that it has secured $38 million (approximately RMB 276 million) in funding. The company is utilizing AI + quantum computing for drug discovery.

This round of financing was led by Cathay Innovation Ventures, with follow-up investments from existing shareholders Wendel, Bpifrance Large Venture, Eurazeo, and Elaia.

At the same time, the latest round of financing has brought Aqemia's total financing to over 100 million US dollars (approximately 725 million RMB).

From École Normale Supérieure Paris

Aqemia was founded in 2019, incubated by École Normale Supérieure (Paris Higher Normal School), and is headquartered in France.

CEO and co-founder Maximilien Levesque, Ph.D., has been dedicated to researching algorithms and previously led a research team at École Normale Supérieure in France.

Aqemia combines quantum computing and artificial intelligence to design small-molecule drugs from scratch. The team is composed of experts in medicinal chemistry, statistical mechanics, and AI, hailing from the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), the University of Oxford, and the University of Cambridge.

The company said that by applyingSelf-developed quantum-inspired statistical mechanics algorithm - structure-based molecular design, which can accurately predict the affinity between compounds and therapeutic targets, and outperforms competitors.Nearly 10,000 times faster; In addition, its AI platform can also receive feedback from affinity predictors, thereby generating compounds with higher accuracy.

With the new funding, Aqemia plans to expand its operations and establish a presence in London by early 2025. London has a well-developed biopharmaceuticals industry in Europe and a strong talent pool, which will be beneficial.Aqemia Launches New Business.

Collaborate closely with Sanofi

As a French AI + drug discovery company, Sanofi's French team has been collaborating with Aqemia in recent years.

On December 10, 2020, Aqemia, an AI + quantum pharmaceutical company that had just been established for a year, attracted the attention of Sanofi, a French local pharmaceutical enterprise, due to its innovative technology and geographical advantages.

The two parties reached an agreement that Aqemia will apply its generative artificial intelligence platform and unique algorithms to calculate the affinity between therapeutic targets and drug candidates, in order to identify active molecules.

In June 2022, after the technology was validated, Aqemia once again collaborated with Sanofi to launch a molecular design and drug discovery project in the field of oncology.

In December 2023, Sanofi and Aqemia reached an agreement worth$140 millionThe transaction,Aiming to leverage Aqemia's AI platform to discover new therapies in oncology.

In addition, the French companyServierAlso collaborated with Aqemia to jointly accelerate the discovery of small molecules, and extended the partnership in early 2023 to collectively target undruggable immuno-oncology targets.

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