Roche and Genentech's latest AI collaborator raises $25M Series A to reinvent one of the oldest cancer targets

Roche and Genentech's latest AI collaborator raises $25M Series A to reinvent one of the oldest cancer targets

Source: 
Endpoints
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It’s a familiar story by now for computational biologists, as was what Kallenbach did next: He founded his own company with a longtime college friend and collaborator, Ankit Gupta. Branded Reverie Labs, the Cambridge startup landed seed funding at Y Combinator and late last year a rare multi-target collaboration with Roche and Genentech. Now, they’ve raised their first significant capital, raising a $25 million Series A led by Ridgeback Capital to advance a pipeline of targeted cancer drugs.

The biotech will use machine learning and other computational methods to study the structure of kinases and ultimately design drugs that can knock them out. The proteins — among the first-ever hit with targeted cancer drugs — are an old focus for a young company, and Kallenbach says he initially faced pushback from investors.