Excelsior Sciences raises $95 million to speed small molecule drug development using AI

By Kamal Choudhury

Dec 3 (Reuters) – Excelsior Sciences said on Wednesday it had raised $95 million to develop technology using machines and artificial intelligence to accelerate the development and testing of small molecules, “with the aim of shaving years off drug discovery timelines.”

The company announced a $70 million Series A round, co-led by Deerfield Management, Khosla Ventures and Sofinnova Partners, as well as a $25 million grant from New York’s Empire State Development.

She did not disclose the valuation at which the funds were raised.

Small molecules make up the majority of drugs authorized in the United States. As treatments such as antibodies and cell therapies expand, Excelsior CEO Michael Foley said about 60% of new drugs approved by the U.S. FDA are small molecules.

However, the discovery and manufacturing of small molecules is slow and expensive, often taking more than a decade and costing billions of dollars, because each molecule requires a custom synthesis process.

Excelsior’s “smart blocks” approach, which one of its major investors described as a new modular language, can help AI “better predict how to create and optimize new therapies.”

Jim Flynn, managing partner at Deerfield, said a typical cycle of four months or more, often involving work spread across the United States, Asia and multiple subcontractors, could be reduced to about two weeks in a single automated facility.

The same process can then be extended to manufacturing, which could save another year to 18 months before clinical trials begin, Flynn added.

The New York-based company, spun out of investment firm Deerfield, hopes to demonstrate full functionality of its platform within 12 months and apply it to at least one drug discovery program.

The funding round also received support from Eli Lilly, Cornucopian Capital, Illinois Ventures, and academic institutions including MIT and Princeton University.

(Reporting by Kamal Choudhury ‌in Bengaluru; editing by Vijay Kishore)