Ignota Labs, an AI-driven drug turnaround company, has closed a $6.9 million seed funding round, co-led by Montage Ventures and AIX Ventures with participation from Modi Ventures, Blue Wire Capital and Gaingels. The funding will be used to expand its pipeline by acquiring additional distressed assets and for advancement into early-stage clinical trials of its first asset, a PDE9A inhibitor.

Drug safety failures are a leading cause of clinical trial failures. Ignota Labs addresses this issue by applying deep learning, cheminformatics, and bioinformatics to uncover and resolve the root causes of drug toxicity, unlocking new opportunities for assets that would otherwise be abandoned.

“We’re thrilled to have the support of this leading investor syndicate in our mission to rescue promising yet struggling drugs with our technology,” said Sam Windsor, CEO and Co-Founder, Ignota Labs. “Traditional safety assessments reveal when something is wrong, but our platform goes a step further by identifying the exact molecular and biological issues to provide actionable insights to re-engineer and revive therapies. With this funding, we can expand our efforts to salvage distressed assets and accelerate the delivery of life-saving therapies to patients.”

How It Works

Ignota Labs identifies promising drug candidates that have been abandoned due to safety concerns—typically 80-90% of the way to success—and uses SAFEPATH to determine the underlying issues and develop solutions. This model not only reduces development timelines by years and costs by millions, but also offers multi-billion-dollar potential for each recovered therapy.

In just two years, Ignota Labs has demonstrated the power of its approach. The company successfully in-licensed its first asset, a first-in-class metabolic health drug with the potential to improve the lives of over 1.2 billion post-menopausal women. Using SAFEPATH, Ignota Labs resolved safety concerns that halted the drug’s progress, validating its findings through rodent models.