- VeriSIM Life recently announced that it raised $5.2 million in a seed series co-led by several investors
Dr. Jo Varshney — a celebrated leader in veterinary and human health development — and a group of world-class scientists and engineers in machine learning and in silico simulation are bringing clarity to drug development with better science through a company called VeriSIM Life (VSL). Recently, VSL raised a $5.2 million seed series co-led by OCA Ventures, Serra Ventures, and Stage Venture Partners with participation from Susa Ventures, Intel Capital, Village Global, Twin Ventures, and Loup Ventures. Plus the company will now be able to support increasingly larger communities in academia and pharma to computationally model and support better translative research in drug development.
“Prior to VeriSIM Life’s disruption in the pharma space, there was a fundamental disconnect in how medicine gets to treating the patients who need it. At the pre-clinical stage, animal testing is relied upon to understand how the safety and efficacy of a new drug compound will react within the human body before being used in clinical trials. This is ineffective and unsound for a few reasons: One, it takes far too long, is expensive and wastes R&D resources. Two, it relies on trial and error drug testing that abuses animals. Three, the use of animals as a way of understanding human physiology results in further inefficiency, error (92%), and is a bit like comparing apples to oranges,” said VSL founder and CEO Dr. Varshney. “We, instead, use world-class expertise in machine learning and engineering to produce models that serve as ‘digital’ animals and — in the future — humans.”
VSL is now working to source additional opportunities with more partnering companies in the biotech and pharma space, inclusive of medical development impacting both humans and animals. And with prior successful launches into partnerships and co-development with big companies, academia, and CROs, the company is now positioned to not only continue their proof of concept but fully implement solutions for companies looking to move from bench to bedside.
With this round of funding, VSL will be able to optimize its models through expanded academic partnerships, grow a team to include world-class talent in the engineering and operations space, and engage with greater agency when working with larger pharma institutions. And as the team grows, VSL will maintain a cross-collaborative culture reliant upon world-class subject matter expertise and an approach to collaboration that seeks to include as many diverse experiences as possible. Plus with a “ground-up” approach to celebrating inclusion, diverse expert opinions, belonging, and equality, it is possible to gain tremendous insights from a team committed to communicating and engaging from highly unique and specialized points of view and break the silos that currently exist across different disciplines.
The company saves millions of dollars and years of effort while bringing greater accuracy and efficiency to drug development. One of VSL’s biggest partners is Genentech.
“The cost and time of developing new medications have been growing for decades. Modeling and simulation approaches have potential to reduce the time and cost and restore sustainability to drug development. VeriSIM Life is on the leading edge of this next phase of drug development using AI and machine learning to more efficiently and effectively predict pharmacology of potential new drug candidates through pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic modeling and simulation. VeriSIM Life has the potential to help design better drugs, predict disease outcome, and select patients who would benefit from therapies; making the dream of personalized medicine a reality,” explained Genentech’s Director of Preclinical research Eric Stefanich while discussing the partnership with VSL.
