WATERTOWN, Mass.– Seismic Therapeutic, Inc., a biotechnology company advancing machine learning for immunology drug development, today announced its launch and financing of $101 million. The Series A was led by Lightspeed Venture Partners with participation from lead founding investors Timothy A. Springer and Polaris Partners, along with new investors GV, Boxer Capital, Samsara BioCapital, and management and founders. Seismic’s IMPACT™ platform systematically integrates machine learning, structural biology, protein engineering and translational immunology to invent novel biologics and optimize properties with significantly improved efficiency and scale over conventional therapeutics discovery. With this new approach, Seismic Therapeutic is accelerating a pipeline of biologics targeting dysregulated adaptive immunity to treat autoimmune diseases.
“The time is right to move the needle in immunology, as advances in technology now enable us to discover medicines to address complex immune system biology in dramatically improved ways,” said Jo Viney, PhD, Founder, President and CEO of Seismic Therapeutic. “We are leading the next generation of immunology drug development with Seismic’s platform. By integrating machine learning throughout the biologics drug discovery process, we are powered by a systematic and programmable approach to design superior biologics from initial discovery and therapeutic design through to manufacturability.”
The Series A financing will support Seismic Therapeutic’s further advancement toward the clinic of its first two lead drug programs, one targeting Ig (immunoglobulin)-mediated autoimmunity and the other targeting cell-mediated autoimmunity. In addition, the company will continue to build its proprietary IMPACT platform to make further advancements to machine learning technologies applied to immunology therapeutics.
“This strong financing and syndicate enable Seismic to aggressively advance multiple product candidates to the clinic. Through its leading edge integration of machine learning into drug development, the company is well positioned to be an important innovator in immunology,” said Alan Crane, Founder and Chairman of Seismic Therapeutic and Entrepreneur Partner at Polaris Partners.
