Evozyne raises $81m to leverage AI for drug discovery

The financing was led by Fidelity Management & Research Company and OrbiMed, with participation from NVentures, NVIDIA’s venture capital arm.

In addition, previous investors Paragon Biosciences and Valor Equity Partners expanded their support in the round.

The news follows a successful collaboration with NVIDIA earlier this year, in which the companies developed a breakthrough AI model that can be used to design therapeutic proteins.

The approach, presented by NVIDIA at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, increases the number and quality of synthetic protein designs, which opens up the possibility to design new therapeutics and reduce development time for new treatments.

Mike Gamson, CEO of Evozyne, said: “In its first three years, Evozyne proved it could deliver novel, high-performance proteins that solve critical problems in healthcare and sustainability. Our next three years will be tightly focused on maximizing our generative AI platform for drug development and carbon capture, while we develop a portfolio of gene editors and enzymes that modulate immune response.”

Matthew Rizzo, general partner of OrbiMed, added: “Generative AI is fundamentally changing the drug discovery process. Through its collaborations with NVIDIA and Takeda, Evozyne has demonstrated its ability to create novel proteins that address longstanding therapeutic challenges. This financing supports Evozyne’s product development and potential IND-enabling studies.”