Inductive Bio, a tech company specializing in machine learning (ML), has come out of stealth mode with $4.3 million in funding. The seed round was led by Andreessen Horowitz (a16z) Bio + Health and Lux Capital, with contributions from Character, Bessemer Venture Partners, Alleycorp, and other investors.

A significant part of resources and time in small molecule preclinical drug discovery is dedicated to optimizing compounds for a balance between potency and Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism, Excretion, and Toxicity (ADMET) properties. Inductive's ML platform combines a proprietary dataset with state-of-the-art ML techniques to map small molecule ADMET drivers. This helps scientists expedite the optimization of initial compounds into leads and development candidates, achieving a better balance of ADMET properties.

Co-founded by Josh Haimson and Ben Birnbaum, who previously built the ML organization at Flatiron Health (acquired by Roche in 2018), Inductive Bio aims to simplify the complex process of compound optimization. Josh Haimson, the co-founder and CEO, stated, "From our experience at Flatiron and Google, we knew it would be possible to help chemists leverage vast quantities of data to make better decisions."

Inductive Bio's deep graph learning algorithms, tailored to real-world, heterogeneous data, have been trained on a high-quality ADMET dataset. According to Ben Birnbaum, co-founder and CTO, "Traditional QSAR approaches make accurate predictions in novel chemotypes only around 30% of the time, whereas our algorithms are predicting accurately across 80% of novel chemotypes."

Wendy Young, Ph.D., a life sciences senior executive and former SVP of small molecule discovery at Genentech, joined Inductive's advisory board in 2022. She expressed excitement about building the next-generation technology that the entire biopharma industry can utilize.

Inductive Bio's early partner, Denali Therapeutics, is leveraging their ML capabilities for ADME property predictions. Denali has integrated custom ADME models from Inductive into their small molecule drug design platform to support rapid, data-driven decision-making.

Ankit Mahadevia, M.D., a serial biotech entrepreneur and co-founder of nine therapeutics companies, has also joined Inductive's advisory board. Dr. Mahadevia emphasized the potential of Inductive's platform to accelerate the biopharma industry's ability to bring safer and more effective therapies to patients.

 

Source: prnewswire.com

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