Cambridge spin-out PharmEnable raises £1.8m for drug discovery

Cambridge spin-out PharmEnable has closed a £1.8-million seed financing to support its transition into a drug development company.

The company is aiming to develop new treatments for conditions with significant unmet clinical need, by designing highly complex molecules for addressing challenging biological targets.

The round, which was significantly over-subscribed, was led by Cambridge Enterprise, the commercialisation arm of the University of Cambridge, as well as the University of Cambridge Enterprise Fund VI, managed by Parkwalk Advisors.

PharmEnable sad it will use the funding to evolve its business model and invest in a pipeline of drug discovery programmes across a number of disease areas including cancer and neurodegenerative disease.

The firm also plans to engage in strategic partnerships with pharma, innovative biotechs and academia.

“Our aim is to replicate the specificity of biologics in the powerful and scalable form of a small molecule, to treat devastating diseases where there are currently no treatment options,” said PharmEnable's Dr Hannah Sore.

“We have proven the strength of our platform in tapping unexplored parts of the chemical universe to find novel and specific hits for currently undruggable targets, and are excited to now be able to invest in our own pipeline of drug discovery programmes, as well as to develop further strategic partnerships.”

“Cambridge Enterprise is really pleased to be investing in this exciting opportunity. To have closed the round during these last few months, and to have attracted such a strong investor syndicate, is a testament to the potential of the AI-enabled platform that PharmEnable has built,” said Dr Christine Martin, head of Life Science Investment at Cambridge Enterprise.

“We believe the company will have significant impact through addressing undruggable therapeutic targets.”