QUANTRO Therapeutics, a Vienna-based biotechnology company developing medicines targeting transcription factors, has secured a 12-month non-dilutive research grant from the Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG) to accelerate development of its AI-powered medicinal chemistry platform, ASCEND.
The financing will support the integration of artificial intelligence, molecular modeling, and the company’s proprietary transcriptomic data to improve drug discovery and optimization.
ASCEND is designed to help QUANTRO identify and develop small molecules targeting transcription factors, proteins that regulate gene expression and play important roles in numerous diseases.
Although transcription factors are implicated in many forms of cancer and other disorders, they have historically been difficult to target using conventional drug development approaches.
QUANTRO estimates that approximately 300 of the 1,600 transcription factors encoded in the human genome are directly associated with disease.
The company believes these proteins represent a significant opportunity for developing new therapeutic approaches.
ASCEND combines QUANTRO’s time-resolved transcriptomic technology with computational chemistry and in-house machine learning tools.
Its transcriptomic platform measures changes in gene expression over time, providing information about transcriptional activity that conventional techniques measuring steady-state RNA levels may not capture.
QUANTRO intends to use these datasets to improve the identification and optimization of drug candidates, including small molecule inhibitors, covalent compounds, and molecular glue degraders.
The company is initially applying the technology to oncology but has designed ASCEND to support drug discovery across multiple therapeutic areas.
Potential future applications include inflammatory disorders and additional treatment approaches involving peptides, macrocycles, and other therapeutic modalities.
The grant will also help QUANTRO establish its AI-driven discovery capabilities on local computing infrastructure in Vienna, reducing reliance on technology providers outside Europe.
QUANTRO was founded in 2019 as a spinout from the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology and the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.
The company has received backing from Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund and Evotec, securing €11 million through milestone-based financing tranches in 2020 and 2023.
It has also entered into a strategic collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim Oncology involving selected cancer-related targets.
The latest research grant will support continued development of ASCEND as QUANTRO advances its therapeutic pipeline toward preclinical candidate selection.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are grateful for the support of the FFG, which represents an important independent endorsement of QUANTRO’s strategy. This non-dilutive funding enables us to build ASCEND into a fully operational, AI-driven discovery platform, accelerating our pipeline. QUANTRO has a unique and proprietary capability to produce highly precise, time-resolved functional transcriptomic data, overcoming the limitations of historical methods and taking corresponding AI/ML applications to new levels. Developing and operating ASCEND on local infrastructure here in Vienna strengthens technological progress made in Austria, supports our long-term competitiveness, and reinforces the country’s excellent track record in scientific and technological innovation. With QUANTRO, we are combining technology leadership in transcriptomics with innovation in computational drug discovery.”
Michael Bauer, CEO Of QUANTRO Therapeutics
“This grant marks an important step in QUANTRO’s next phase of growth, enabling us to leverage our unique proprietary transcriptomics data and state-of-the-art technologies to discover drugs targeting transcription factors. Combined with our time-resolved transcriptomics technology, ASCEND will accelerate the advancement of our therapeutic pipeline towards the selection of preclinical candidates for early clinical development.”
Pascal Benderitter, Head Of Medicinal Chemistry At QUANTRO Therapeutics
