A company in South Alabama has raised a $300,000 seed round.
Daphne-based Phronesis AI, a company that offers an artificial intelligence-enabled software application for fully autonomous de novo drug design and screening, plans to spend around $80,000 of the funding in developing a drug to fight Covid-19, said CEO and Co-founder Richard Fine. The project should be competed in February.
The seed round was funded by a biotech pioneer who has chosen to remain anonymous. The round was expected to take nine months but was completed in two.
Phronesis AI finds molecules that can be inhibitors for diseases. The company’s LIME platform aims to transform the drug discovery process by combining AI with a wide range of small molecular data to discover new drug candidates. By New Year’s, the company expects to have a highly functional and robust user interface to allow people to discover their own molecular inhibitors.
In addition to Covid-19, Fine said the company is working on molecular inhibitors for Huntington’s disease.
The company is also working with several academic institutions, including the University of California at Irvine, the University of Georgia and Johns Hopkins University.
