Ten63 Therapeutics, an AI-driven drug discovery company, announced it has secured strategic investment from Chugai Venture Fund and the Gates Foundation, bringing its total funding to more than $45 million. The funding will support the continued development and scaling of its proprietary BEYOND platform, which the company describes as the world’s first Large Quantum Chemistry Model designed to simulate trillions of potential drugs per protein with near laboratory-level accuracy.
The financing includes participation from new investors Chugai Venture Fund, the Gates Foundation, RYSE, K5 Global, SF Holdings, Duke Capital Partners, Cape Fear BioCapital, Black Opal Ventures, and Panorama. They join existing backers Hatteras Venture Partners, Yosemite, Morpheus Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, and Draper Associates. As part of the transaction, Mike Dial, Ph.D., Managing Director of Chugai Venture Fund, has joined Ten63’s board of directors.
Ten63 said the funding will accelerate the advancement of BEYOND, a computational drug discovery platform that applies quantum mechanics–level simulations at speeds significantly faster than other advanced computational approaches. The company believes the technology enables the pursuit of previously “undruggable” targets, which it estimates represent approximately 80% of all human proteins.
Among its pipeline programs, Ten63 is targeting Myc, one of the most extensively studied oncogenes and a driver believed to be involved in 70% of cancers. Despite decades of research and hundreds of attempts, Myc has historically been considered undruggable. The company said therapeutics targeting Myc are now in active development, leveraging BEYOND’s mathematical framework to address challenges that have limited prior efforts.
Powered by its platform, Ten63 is building a pipeline of first- and best-in-class small molecules aimed at high-impact oncology targets that have remained undruggable or underdrugged. The company said its simulation environment allows AI systems to explore and learn from trillions of molecular possibilities millions of times faster than physical laboratory methods, while retaining experimental-level accuracy.
In addition to equity investment, Ten63 received a grant from the Gates Foundation to support a coordinated global strategy addressing cervical cancer, one of the deadliest cancers worldwide. Human papillomavirus (HPV), the most common sexually transmitted infection globally, is responsible for more than 650,000 cancer cases each year across women and men. Certain high-risk strains of HPV can lead to cervical, vulvar, and vaginal cancers.
Ten63 is using the BEYOND platform to develop cost-effective and safe treatments for HPV lesions by targeting viral proteins that have so far been considered undruggable. The company said its goal is to expand access to affordable small-molecule therapies to combat the global HPV pandemic.
Ten63 Therapeutics is headquartered in North Carolina’s Research Triangle and was spun out of Duke and TTIC. The company is advancing an internal oncology pipeline while also pursuing select strategic partnerships across multiple disease indications.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are very impressed with Ten63’s AI drug discovery platform and its ability to quickly and accurately simulate trillions of potential drugs. However, this is not just about making drug discovery faster. It’s about creating medicines for targets no one else can and designing better alternatives where existing drugs deliver inadequate results.”
John Gustofson, President and Head of Chugai Venture Fund
“AI not only accelerates drug discovery; it enables us to pursue high-impact targets in ways that were previously impossible. Many of the most important targets across multiple diseases are considered undruggable. These critical targets are data-poor and difficult to reach experimentally. Making them exceptionally difficult for traditional experimental screening and current AI techniques. They require a new approach. By perfecting a simulation environment that enables AI to explore and learn from trillions of molecular possibilities, millions of times faster than physical methods, while retaining experimental-level accuracy, we are advancing towards superintelligence for drug discovery. At that point, we believe little will remain undruggable.”
Marcel Frenkel, PhD, CEO of Ten63 Therapeutics
“The enthusiasm and momentum behind this new funding validates what we’ve believed from the beginning. Ten63’s approach has the potential to transform not just cancer treatment, but the entire spectrum of drug discovery.”
Clay Thorp, Chairman of the Board of Ten63 Therapeutics and General Partner at Hatteras Venture Partners
