Variational AI
  • Our Approach
  • Company
  • Team
  • Jobs
  • What’s New
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • Variational AI Announces Oversubscribed $5.5 Million Financing to Launch Foundation Model for Small Molecule Drug Discovery

    Variational AI Announces Oversubscribed $5.5 Million Financing to Launch Foundation Model for Small Molecule Drug Discovery

    New funding to fuel market expansion of compute efficient foundation model for biopharmaceutical companies

    VANCOUVER, BC, February 20, 2025 — (BUSINESS WIRE) — Variational AI, the company behind Enki™, an advanced foundation model for small molecule drug discovery, today announced the completion of its oversubscribed $US5.5 million Seed extension round. Enki™ empowers biopharmaceutical chemistry teams to efficiently discover and optimize novel hits and leads, accelerating early-stage drug discovery. The round attracted strong investor interest, exceeding the company’s initial funding target, reflecting confidence in Enki’s potential. Nimbus Synergies led the round, with participation from Merck Global Health Innovation Fund, Quimby Investments, Threshold Impact, and Defined Capital. Existing investors Flying Fish, A&E Investment, and Nepenthe Capital participated in the round.

    The adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for early-stage drug discovery has accelerated across the biopharmaceutical industry in recent years; however, small molecule drug discovery continues to rely on older, non-generative (discriminative) AI models focused on finding hits from within large libraries of virtual molecules. While effective, this approach often limits novel discoveries and still requires extensive optimization though multiple Design-Make-Test-Analyze (DMTA) cycles.

    “Great drugs start with great molecules, but most drug discovery begins in the same place – screening molecular libraries or tweaking existing scaffolds,” said Handol Kim, CEO of Variational AI. “By comparison, we have trained the Enki™ foundation model on our proprietary dataset covering almost 600 targets that generates diverse leads with outstanding potency and selectivity. This empowers chemistry teams at biopharmaceutical companies to discover and optimize hits and leads with the best possible novel starting points far more efficiently than traditional methods” continued Kim. “Our partners synthesize and test around 20 novel molecules from multiple scaffolds that we generate per project over a few weeks and have achieved a sub-micromolar hit rate of over 50% with a 90% rate of synthetic success.”

    Generative models are extremely effective in domains such as language and images but have yet to make a similarly deep impact on chemistry. “The Variational AI scientific team has spent years quietly building a foundation model constrained to small molecule drug discovery that uses orders of magnitude less compute and data than foundation models in other domains” said Jason Robertson, Managing Partner, Nimbus Synergies. “This foundation model marks a paradigm shift in drug discovery enabling better, more reliable, and cost-effective drug development, which ultimately improves patient outcomes and reduces healthcare costs,” expressed Robertson.

    With this new funding, Variational AI is poised to bring its technology to a broader market, helping biopharmaceutical companies design novel drugs faster and more efficiently.

    About Variational AI

    Variational AI is redefining the unit economics of drug discovery through the power of generative AI. The founding machine learning (ML) team comes from leading AI research labs at Google, Microsoft, MIT, Caltech, and D-Wave Quantum working with established drug discovery leaders to develop Enki™, the industry-leading foundation model for small molecule drug discovery. Variational AI is based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, and is actively hiring. For more information visit us at http://variational.ai or email us at info@variational.ai.

    About Nimbus Synergies

    Nimbus Synergies leads early-stage financings in innovative and complementary health technology companies in Canada. By bringing these companies together to share resources, industry specific knowledge, and relationships, Nimbus is accelerating their growth and increasing their likelihood of success. Nimbus is significantly impacting the health technology sector through its leadership as investor, partner, and mentor. For more information, please visit us at https://nimbusinc.vc/ or email us at info@nimbusinc.vc

    Contacts

    info@variational.ai
    604-761-7199

    Handol Kim

    February 20, 2025
    Featured, Press Release
  • Variational AI Selected by ImmVue Therapeutics to Power Immuno-Oncology Drug Discovery

    Variational AI Selected by ImmVue Therapeutics to Power Immuno-Oncology Drug Discovery

    Immuno-Oncology pioneer ImmVue Therapeutics to adopt Enki™ Lead Generator to discover first-in-class cancer drugs.

    Vancouver, BC – September 25, 2024 – Variational AI, developer of the Enki™ generative artificial intelligence (AI) platform for drug discovery, today announced a collaboration with ImmVue Therapeutics Inc. “We are excited to announce ImmVue as our newest Enki™ Platform customer.” said Handol Kim, CEO, Variational AI. “ImmVue’s industry-leading science has informed unique biological insights into important therapeutic targets in the fight against cancer.”

    Under the collaboration, Variational AI will deliver novel and selective lead compounds to ImmVue discovered by the Enki™ Platform Lead Generator based on a pre-clinical target product profile (TPP) defined by ImmVue’s scientific team. ImmVue will pay an upfront fee and milestone based on success and have the right to own the compounds on an exclusive basis moving forward.

    “We were impressed by the experimentally-validated results of Variational AI’s Enki™ Platform to efficiently generate novel leads with unmatched potency and selectivity against a range of targets of high interest in immuno-oncology ” said Sandy Der, PhD, Co-Founder & COO. “Compared to traditional chemistry approaches, Variational AI’s offering and business model are extremely compelling to biology-first companies such as ImmVue.”

    “The ImmVue team has a deep and extensive understanding of the disease biology and immunology that complements and can take advantages of Variational AI’s generative chemistry capabilities,” added Kim.

    About Variational AI

    Variational AI has developed Enki™, the first commercially available foundation model for small molecules to enable biopharmaceutical companies to discover novel, potent, safe, and synthesizable lead compounds for a small fraction of the time and cost versus traditional chemistry approaches. To learn more, visit: www.variational.ai. 

    About ImmVue Therapeutics

    ImmVue’s goal is develop innovative medicines that utilize novel mechanisms to revitalize the immune system of cancer patients. The foundation of ImmVue’s approach originated from the discovery of tunable lymphocyte activation to restore patients’ immune functions to eradicate cancer cells. Further information may be found at www.immvue.com.

    Handol Kim

    October 2, 2024
    Featured, Press Release
  • Variational AI and Rakovina announce Collaboration

    Variational AI and Rakovina announce Collaboration

    September 22, 2024 – Vancouver, British Columbia – Rakovina Therapeutics Inc. (TSX-V: RKV), dedicated to developing innovative cancer therapies targeting DNA-damage response (DDR), is excited to announce a collaboration with Variational AI, known for its advanced Enki™ platform for drug discovery. This partnership aims to identify and develop new small-molecule therapies targeting DDR kinases.

    As part of this agreement, Rakovina will gain exclusive rights to compounds generated by the Enki™ platform and the opportunity to license successful candidates for further development. Variational AI will focus on discovering new inhibitors for specific DDR targets identified by Rakovina, which will subsequently be evaluated at its University of British Columbia lab.

    “This collaboration expands our therapeutic pipeline and enhances our drug discovery efforts,” said Executive Chairman Jeffrey Bacha. For more information, visit Variational AI and Rakovina Therapeutics.

    Source: https://www.fiercebiotech.com/biotech/rakovina-deepens-ai-focus-cancer-collab-select-dna-damage-response-kinase-targets

    Handol Kim

    September 21, 2024
    Press Release
  • Variational AI announces generative AI project with Merck

    Variational AI announces generative AI project with Merck

    Merck to evaluate Variational AI’s Enki™ generative AI platform to design novel and selective small molecules

    Vancouver, BC – January 25, 2024 – Variational AI, developer of the Enki™ generative artificial intelligence (AI) platform for drug discovery, today announced a project with Merck Research Labs supported by the CQDM Quantum Leap program.

    “We are pleased to announce Merck as an early-access user of our Enki™ Platform.” said Handol Kim, CEO, Variational AI. “Merck will evaluate Enki’s ability to generate novel small molecules on targets of their choosing. We built and trained Enki™ as a foundation model that generates novel, selective, and synthesizable lead-like structures. It designs novel molecules how other generative AI foundation models like DALL-E and Midjourney create novel images based on text prompts. In our case, a target product profile (TPP) is used as the series of prompts to describe the molecules in the language of chemistry. Enki™ then rapidly generates structures that meet the TPP.”

    “Adoption of AI for drug discovery is accelerating, but it is being led by companies using their proprietary AI to discover and develop their own assets.” Explained Kim, “With the Enki™ Platform, chemists do not need to develop their own generative AI models, but can now submit their TPPs and get novel, diverse, selective, and synthesizable lead-like structures in days to move quickly into lead optimization.”

    The collaboration is supported by CQDM under the Quantum Leap program.

    “CQDM is pleased to have facilitated the establishment of collaborations for Variational AI by creating beneficial links with Merck, a global biopharmaceutical organization. These links between early-stage Canadian companies and the biopharmaceutical industry are critical for the growth of the Canadian life sciences sector,” said Jesse Paterson, Senior Director, BD.

    About Variational AI

    Variational AI is redefining the unit economics of drug discovery and development through the power of generative AI. Variational AI’s Enki™ Platform is a foundation model for small molecule drug discovery to accelerate and de-risk early-stage discovery. Please visit variational.ai.

    About CQDM
    Facilitator of biopharma innovation

    CQDM is a not-for-profit biopharmaceutical research consortium whose mission is to support and facilitate multi-stakeholder collaborative R&D aimed at accelerating the translation of innovative technologies into solutions that address unmet medical needs, while generating significant benefits for the Quebec and Canadian economy. For more information, please visit the website: www.cqdm.org

    Media Contact
    Handol Kim
    info@variational.ai

    Handol Kim

    January 25, 2024
    Press Release
  • Variational AI Makes Prestigious Additions to Scientific Advisory Board

    Variational AI Makes Prestigious Additions to Scientific Advisory Board

    Leading Chemistry and Drug Development Researchers Alexander Tropsha, Ph.D. and Robert N. Young, Ph.D. Join SAB

    Vancouver, BC – April 5, 2022 – Variational AI, developer of state-of-the-art generative AI technology to redefine the economics of drug development by accelerating the discovery of novel and optimized small molecule therapeutics, today announced that it has added industry leaders Alexander Tropsha, Ph.D. and Robert N. Young, Ph.D.  to the company’s Scientific Advisory Board.

    Dr. Alexander Tropsha is a K.H. Lee Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Eshelman School of Pharmacy and Chief Domain Scientist for Molecular Informatics at the Renaissance Computing Institute, UNC-Chapel Hill. He has extensive expertise in computational chemistry, structural bioinformatics and cheminformatics, which brings together chemistry and computer science to assist in the discovery of new drugs. He has authored more than 260 peer-reviewed papers as well as 25 books and chapters. In addition to serving as pharmacy professor, Dr. Tropsha is also an adjunct professor for the UNC Department of Biomedical Engineering and the Department of Computer Science and is a member of the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Tropsha is an elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biomedical Institute (Class of 2021).

    Dr. Robert N. Young worked in various capacities at Merck Frosst Canada & Co., including Vice-President and Head of the Medicinal Chemistry Department and acting site head at the Merck Frosst Centre for Therapeutic Research (Montreal) and at MSD, Terlings Park Neurosciences Centre in the UK. Over his 30-year career, he led discovery efforts resulting in the development of Singulair®, Vioxx®, Arcoxia®, Previcox®, Tredaptive® and Odanacatib. Dr. Young is Professor of Chemistry and Merck Frosst-B.C. Leadership Chair in Pharmaceutical Genomics, Bioinformatics and Drug Discovery in the Chemistry Department, at Simon Fraser University. His current research is focused on the design and synthesis of novel pharmacological probes and proof-of-concept molecules for the discovery of new drug targets. Dr. Young founded Mesentech in 2016, a pre-clinical platform company that is developing therapeutics to treat a range of bone diseases. His many honours include winner of the Prix Galien, American Chemistry Society (ACS) Hero of Chemistry, the Order of Canada (MC), Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, the Chemical Institute of Canada and President of the Canadian Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences (CSPS).

    “The Variational AI team is pleased to be able to tap into the deep scientific expertise of Drs. Tropsha and Young to advance our efforts to revolutionize the development of new therapeutics,” said Handol Kim, co-founder and CEO, Variational AI. “As we seek to identify new drug-like small molecules with the potential to impact multiple disease areas, it is critical to have the input from chemistry leaders to ensure our generative AI platform is informed by leading medicinal and computational chemistry expertise.”

    Drs. Tropsha and Young join current SAB member Artem Cherkasov, Ph.D., who was recently awarded the esteemed Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Precision Cancer Drug Design. He is a professor of medicine at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver, Canada) and head of the Therapeutics Development Core at Vancouver Prostate Centre. Throughout his impressive career, his research has focused on computer-aided drug discovery (CADD), AI-guided drug design, cheminformatics and the development of novel, precision cancer therapies. He has participated in the development of eight out-licensed drug projects and co-authored more than 200 research papers, 80 patent filings and several book chapters to date. In 2021, he received UBC Faculty of Medicine Distinguished Achievement Award for Excellence in Fundamental Science.

    Variational AI uses machine learning to discover novel, drug-like small molecules. The company’s algorithm, Enki, learns from a training set of molecules screened against drug targets from both experimental and computational sources and then generates novel molecular structures which are optimized for properties to avoid common causes of drug attrition and accelerate drug development with the goal of reducing early-stage drug discovery to months versus years.

    About Variational AI

    Variational AI uses state-of-the-art machine learning in a data-efficient method to rapidly generate novel and diverse compounds that are optimized for multiple properties to avoid the most common causes of drug attrition and increase clinical probability of success. Variational AI works with leading biopharmaceutical partners and is developing its own internal pipeline. To learn more, visit variational.ai.

    Media Contact
    Jordan Bouclin
    SVM PR
    variationalai@svmpr.com

    Handol Kim

    April 5, 2022
    Press Release
  • Peter Guzzo Joins Variational AI as Vice President, Head of Drug Discovery

    Peter Guzzo Joins Variational AI as Vice President, Head of Drug Discovery

    Industry Veteran to Lead Company’s Therapeutic Development

    Vancouver, BC – March 15, 2022 – Variational AI, developer of state-of-the-art generative AI technology to redefine the economics of drug development by accelerating the discovery of novel and optimized small molecule therapeutics, today announced that Peter Guzzo, Ph.D., has joined the company as vice president, head of drug discovery. Guzzo has spent his 25-year career focused on finding innovative therapeutics for poorly treated diseases and will work on translating hits for various important biological targets discovered through Variational AI’s proprietary generative AI platform into candidate compounds for clinical development.

    Peter has knowledge in multiple therapeutic indications, including oncology, central nervous system diseases, metabolic disorders, intellectual property creation and building entrepreneurial teams. He is an inventor on 43 patents, co-author of 47 scientific publications and has presented 28 invited lectures. During his career, he has led cross-functional teams, delivering 11 innovative drugs into clinical development. He has extensive experience collaborating with pharma, biotech, academic institutions and contract research organizations to execute drug discovery and development projects.

    Guzzo most recently served as vice president, drug development at Tryp Therapeutics, Inc. and senior vice president of drug discovery and development at SciMount Therapeutics, co-founder and advisor at ConSynance Therapeutics, Inc. and advisor at YDS Medicine. He earned his doctorate in organic chemistry from the University of Notre Dame. He completed post-doctoral studies in organic synthesis at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

    “As a seasoned therapeutic development leader, Peter’s expertise will enable Variational AI to move projects further down the drug discovery pathway and value chain,” said Handol Kim, co-founder and CEO, Variational AI. “Peter’s leadership will also help our team expand upon the number and types of projects we can work on internally and with partners.”

    “I am excited to join a team that is truly dedicated to revolutionizing the development of new, life-saving drugs,” said Guzzo. “I look forward to accelerating Variational AI’s journey from a generative AI startup to a therapeutics company.”

    Marawan Ahmed, Ph.D. has also joined the Variational AI team as cheminformatician. He received his Ph.D. in computational chemistry from the Swinburne University of Technology and completed post-doctoral studies in computational chemistry at the University of Alberta, where he served as a research associate, and has worked with various organizations in drug discovery.

    Variational AI uses machine learning to discover novel, drug-like small molecules. The company’s algorithm, Enki, learns from a training set of molecules screened against drug targets from both experimental and computational sources and then generates novel molecular structures with multiple pre-defined parameters/properties, which are optimized to avoid common causes of drug attrition. Variational AI performs optimization in tandem – requiring less data than other AI solutions in the market and delivering results in months versus years.

    About Variational AI

    Variational AI uses state-of-the-art machine learning in a data-efficient method to rapidly generate novel and diverse compounds that are optimized for multiple properties to avoid the most common causes of drug attrition and increase clinical probability of success. Variational AI works with leading biopharmaceutical partners and is developing its own internal pipeline. To learn more, visit variational.ai.

    Media Contact
    Jordan Bouclin
    SVM PR
    variationalai@svmpr.com

    Handol Kim

    March 15, 2022
    Press Release
  • Variational AI Partners with the University of British Columbia and adMare BioInnovations to Develop COVID-19 Therapeutic

    Variational AI Partners with the University of British Columbia and adMare BioInnovations to Develop COVID-19 Therapeutic

    AI-Generated Antiviral is Intended to Treat Variants of Concern Such as Omicron and Delta

    Vancouver, BC – December 15, 2021 – Variational AI, developer of state-of-the-art generative AI technology to redefine the economics of drug development by accelerating the discovery of novel and optimized small molecule therapeutics, today announced the company has generated and ordered compounds for validation in partnership with the University of British Columbia (UBC) and adMare BioInnovations to develop a novel SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease (3CLpro) inhibitor. The therapeutic is intended to be efficacious against the wild type and current variants of concern, including Delta and potentially Omicron, in the form of an antiviral pill. The COVID-19 drug discovery program is funded by Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster, which is supported by the Canadian Ministry of Innovation, Science and Industry.

    “The Variational AI team is honored to partner with the University of British Columbia and adMare BioInnovations to work to address this most urgent medical need,” said Handol Kim, co-founder and CEO, Variational AI. “As society continues to grapple with COVID-19 variants, it is more important than ever to leverage the power of machine learning to accelerate our drug discovery efforts.”

    Variational AI has trained its generative AI algorithm on a large amount of COVID-19 data to generate new molecules and has ordered a number of compounds to be synthesized that are predicted to be potent and safe with fewer side effects. Variational AI uses a generative model known as Variational Autoencoder (VAE), which is able to optimize molecular properties more quickly and uses data far more efficiently. The company intends to license the antiviral compound to a partner to accelerate progress and get the therapeutics into clinics sooner.

    “We are proud to support Variational AI’s innovative approach to discovering an effective therapeutic for COVID-19,” said Sue Paish, CEO of the Digital Technology Supercluster. “While vaccines offer the first and best line of defense against COVID-19, the global community needs as many therapeutic options as possible to prevent fatalities and improve patient outcomes.”

    Generally, pills can be manufactured, distributed and stored more easily and cost-effectively than vaccines and are particularly well-suited to treat people in developing countries. In addition to COVID-19 and its variants, the resulting therapeutic may also be efficacious against other coronaviruses.

    “Our lab is committed to remaining at the forefront of applying computational methods to discover COVID-19 therapeutics, and our collaboration with Variational AI to leverage the company’s powerful AI adds a promising pipeline of novel and potent SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease inhibitors to the arsenal of antiviral options,” said, Artem Cherkasov, Ph.D., professor of medicine, University of British Columbia.

    About Variational AI

    Variational AI uses state-of-the-art machine learning in a data-efficient method to rapidly generate novel and diverse compounds that are optimized for multiple properties to avoid the most common causes of drug attrition and increase clinical probability of success. Variational AI works with leading biopharmaceutical partners and is developing its own internal pipeline. To learn more, visit variational.ai.

    Media Contact
    Jordan Bouclin
    SVM PR
    variationalai@svmpr.com

    Handol Kim

    December 15, 2021
    Press Release
  • Variational AI Secures $US3.5 Million in Seed Funding to Apply State-of-the-Art AI Platform to Generate Novel Small Molecule Therapeutics for Drug Development

    Variational AI Secures $US3.5 Million in Seed Funding to Apply State-of-the-Art AI Platform to Generate Novel Small Molecule Therapeutics for Drug Development

    New Capital Will Advance Biopharma Company’s AI-Powered Programs Across Disease Areas

    Vancouver, BC – November 17, 2021 – Variational AI, developer of state-of-the-art generative AI technology to redefine the economics of drug development by accelerating the discovery of novel and optimized small molecules, today announced that it has raised $US3.5 million ($CDN4.3 million) in seed funding. The investment round was led by Flying Fish Ventures, Alliance of Angels and A&E Investments, with participation from Lip-Bu Tan and Amarjit Gill, Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, investors and advisors.

    Variational AI’s Enki algorithm learns from a training set of molecules screened against drug targets from both experimental and computational sources and then generates novel molecular structures with multiple pre-defined parameters/properties optimized to avoid common causes of drug attrition. This optimization is performed in parallel and can deliver results in months versus years and requires significantly less data than competing AI offerings.

    “The pandemic has demonstrated the importance of accelerating drug discovery and reducing the cost and risk to developing therapeutics,” said Frank Chang managing partner, Flying Fish. “We are thrilled to invest in Variational AI’s machine learning approach to discovering new molecules, which has the potential to dramatically impact the biopharma industry.”

    The seed funding will enable Variational AI to accelerate existing discovery programs for COVID-19, cancer and other disease areas. The company will also utilize the new capital to hire additional leaders in medicinal chemistry, cheminformatics, and machine learning, and recruit a Scientific Advisory Board.

    “The Variational AI team is excited to welcome our investors in sharing our vision for redefining the economics of drug development,” said Handol Kim, co-founder and CEO, Variational AI. “We look forward to accelerating our current programs and identifying new drug targets that Enki is uniquely suited to tackle to rapidly address unmet medical needs.”

    About Variational AI

    Variational AI uses state-of-the-art machine learning in a data-efficient method to rapidly generate novel and diverse compounds that are optimized for multiple properties to avoid the most common causes of drug attrition and increase clinical probability of success. Variational AI works with leading biopharmaceutical partners and is developing its own internal pipeline. To learn more, visit variational.ai.

    Media Contact
    Sage Morander and Jordan Bouclin
    SVM PR
    variationalai@svmpr.com

    Handol Kim

    November 17, 2021
    Press Release

Our Approach

Company

Our Team

What’s New

Blog

Jobs

Contact

Follow Us

  • LinkedIn
  • X

577 Great Northern Way, #240 Vancouver, BC V5T 1E1 Canada

+1 604 761 7199

info@variational.ai

© Variational AI Inc.

Terms  |  Privacy Policy