Skip to main content
< Back to news
Dr. Jascha Blobel, co-founder and CEO of Molomics (Foto: Parc Científic de Barcelona).
 18.05.2022

US company VeriSIM Life acquires start-up Molomics Biotech

US biotech company VeriSIM Life, a global benchmark in developing artificial intelligence technology for drug development, has acquired deep tech start-up Molomics Biotech, which holds the patent on technology that integrates Artificial Intelligence (AI) with Human Collective Intelligence (HCI), harnessed to design new therapeutic molecules. Molomics is the latest success story to come out of the Barcelona Science Park.

Created in 2015 by Jascha Blobel (CEO), Giovanni Cincilla (CSO) and Simone Masoni (CTO), most of its capital was in the hands of the founding team, which has guaranteed agile execution of its business plan and maximised profit for investors.

With the transaction, for an undisclosed amount, the vast majority of shareholders will also receive shares in VeriSIM Life, which raised $15 million (€14.4 million) in a Series A round this January.

From its headquarters in the Barcelona Science Park, Molomics completed development of patented technology to design new therapeutic molecules. The innovation of this technology lies in integrating human collective intelligence with artificial intelligence to determine in real time new chemical structures with high therapeutic activity and pharmacological properties superior to drugs currently developed or marketed. This combination of machine learning and the knowledge of specialists makes it possible to reduce the number of molecules that are tested unnecessarily, which can represent savings of hundreds of millions of euros for the pharmaceutical industry.

Molomics has used this approach to advance a treatment for Parkinson’s disease that addresses levodopa-induced dyskinesia, a movement disorder associated with this disease that can cause significant physical disability in those affected.

Molomics’ technology will seamlessly integrate into VeriSIM’s ‘virtual drug development engine’, BIOiSIM™, to further improve the success rates for the discovery, development and approval of new drugs for the most challenging diseases impacting humankind. This combined discovery and translational engine will allow pharmaceutical researchers to preflight advancements in medicine in a fraction of the time and cost it takes today, and provide far better outcomes than the 8% success currently seen in medicine making it to market.

“This acquisition represents a considerable step forward in our strategy to accelerate our growth over the long term and supplement our proprietary software platform to develop effective patient therapies more rapidly and accurately than traditional methods,” said Dr. Jo Varshney, founder and CEO of VeriSIM Life. “Along with advancing research in Parkinson’s Disease, we plan to cover the full spectrum of drug discovery and development for the treatment of neurological, oncological and other life-threatening diseases.”

“We are excited to join the team at VeriSIM Life and infuse an already powerful translational prediction platform with our unique and highly complementary discovery technology,” said Dr. Jascha Blobel, CEO of Molomics. “Our early collaboration has achieved promising initial results, and we believe the best is yet to come.”

Since it was founded, Molomics has raised more than €1 million in public and private capital. In addition to receiving financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation from the beginning through a Torres Quevedo grant, it has also had support from the Michael J. Fox Foundation in its projects aimed at Parkinson’s disease.