Schrödinger closes USD 85 million funding round from Gates Foundation and others
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and WuXi AppTec’s Corporate Venture Fund have led an $85 million funding round into Schrödinger. The company produces a computational platform for drug discovery, which it also uses for its own research.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and WuXi AppTec’s Corporate Venture Fund have led an $85 million funding round into Schrödinger. The company produces a computational platform for drug discovery, which it also uses for its own research.
“Schrödinger has demonstrated that precise molecular design can significantly accelerate drug discovery and lead to unexpected solutions that stand to benefit patients. We’re pleased to support this exciting stage in Schrödinger’s growth,” said Bill Gates, who has led three previous investments in Schrödinger since 2010.
The new investment will be used to support development of Schrödinger’s computational platform, as well as its drug discovery programmes. For the latter, it partners with several companies, such as Sanofi and Takeda, to work on a broad range of disease areas. It currently has molecules at clinical trial stage for metabolic diseases and antifungal applications, but also is at discovery stage across oncology, type 2 diabetes, and autoimmune disease. Much of its work is with Nimbus Therapeutics, a biotech company it cofounded with early-stage VC firm Atlas Ventures in 2009.
“The investment will allow us to continue to advance our technology platform to help our users accelerate their work in life sciences and materials design. We are also excited to expand our drug discovery efforts, leveraging our platform to grow our pipeline and discover new medicines more efficiently,” said Ramy Farid, Ph.D., Schrödinger’s CEO. “Our growth will help us realize our mission to improve human health and quality of life.”
Other investors in the funding round include Deerfield Management, Baron, Qiming Venture Partners, and GV (formerly Google Ventures).