Metaphore Biotechnologies, a Cambridge, MA-based company which specializes in biomimicry and machine learning for molecular mimics, raised USD50M in funding.
Flagship made the investment.
The company intends to use the funds to advance its MIMiC platform and build its pipeline for patients with autoimmune, metabolic, or oncology indications.
Led by CEO Lovisa Afzelius, Metaphore Biotechnologies leverages the MIMiC platform, a computationally driven bioplatform, to design new therapeutics where function, specificity, and selectivity can be optimized, and build its pipeline for patients with autoimmune, metabolic, or oncology indications.
The MIMiC platform imitates and then evolves the function of pharmacophores, the set of essential components that govern interactions between natural bioactive molecules. The platform systematically isolates a pharmacophore, creating a precise mold of its features that can then be cast into a functional imitation of the original. Massively parallel assays are integrated with machine learning-guided engineering to evolve novel mimetic compounds where function, specificity, and selectivity can be explicitly tuned and optimized. These molecular mimics can be designed to modulate previously intractable targets in a programmable way, and be incorporated into any therapeutic modality.
The company was founded in 2021 in Flagship Labs, a unit of Flagship Pioneering. Noubar Afeyan, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering, is also the Co-Founder and Chairman of Metaphore.
In addition to Noubar Afeyan and Lovisa Afzelius, Metaphore’s founding team includes Daniel Acker, Ph.D., Flagship Pioneering Principal, who also serves as Chief Innovation Officer for Metaphore.
The leadership team includes Amanda Kay, Ph.D., Flagship Pioneering Operating Partner and President of Metaphore, former CBO Deep Genomics, and COO Pfizer Inflammation & Immunology; Chaz Hinzman, Ph.D., Flagship Pioneering Associate and Head of Business Operations for Metaphore; and Marcin Paduch, Ph.D., Head of Platform at Metaphore.
