By James Waldron
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO — Soley Therapeutics secured $200 million in series C funds, which the artificial-intelligence-enabled biotech plans to use to take its lead acute myeloid leukemia (AML) asset into the clinic earlier in January.
The South San Francisco-based company’s pipeline is a product of its cell stress sensing platform, which uses AI and “computer vision” to analyze thousands of responses in human cells that are then used to help design new therapeutic molecules, according to the biotech.
The potential of Soley’s tech has already been enough to attract investors like the Doug Leone Family Fund, Breyer Capital and GordonMD Global Investments. They all returned for the series C alongside new backers Surveyor Capital, which acted as the primary investor, as well as HRTG Partners and RWN Management.
“We built Soley to measure how living human cells, in health and disease, respond to drug exposure and determine their fate,” Soley CEO and co-founder Yerem Yeghiazarians, MD, explained in the January 7 release.
“We then translate this cellular information into a robust portfolio of novel drug candidates across a broad range of disease areas and indications,” Yeghiazarians continued. “We are thrilled by the strong investor support from life sciences and technology-focused funds as we advance our lead programs into the clinic and expand our platform to continue building a first-in-class pipeline.”
