Schrodinger gets additional funding to expand toxicology risk initiative

Schrodinger (SDGR) announced that it is broadening and accelerating its initiative to expand the company’s computational platform to predict toxicology risk early in drug discovery. The goal of the initiative, announced earlier this year, is to develop a computational solution designed to improve the properties of novel drug development candidates and reduce the risk of development failure associated with binding to off-target proteins, which can be associated with serious side effects. In conjunction with this expansion, Schrodinger received an additional $9.5M from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which follows the initial $10M grant from the Gates Foundation in July 2024. The additional funding enables Schrodinger to more rapidly access relevant experimental structures and extends the funding for this initiative to April 2026. Once developed, the technology will be available to the Gates Foundation’s grantees around the world to help speed the development of new drugs against diseases that disproportionately affect people in low- and middle-income countries. These tools will also be available to Schrodinger’s software customers and will be used to advance Schrodinger’s proprietary drug discovery programs and collaborations. “This additional funding allows us to accelerate and broaden the scope of our initiative to rapidly develop high-quality computational models to address off-target toxicity, a significant cause of drug development failure,” stated Ramy Farid, Ph.D., chief executive officer at Schrodinger. “We are grateful to the Gates Foundation for their continued support and shared vision of using computation to reduce the potential for safety issues in preclinical and clinical research and significantly lower the cost and risk of drug development.” The majority of revenue associated with the additional funding is expected to be recognized in 2025.