PsiThera, a biotech company harnessing biologically relevant protein states and computational intelligence to create oral drugs for diseases long-constrained by injectable-only approaches, has closed a $47.5m Series A financing and appointed Eric Shaff as chief executive officer.
The equity round was led by Samsara Biocapital and Lightstone Ventures with participation from other investors, including Roivant, YK Bioventures, Eurofarma Ventures, and others. PsiThera, formerly called Psivant Therapeutics, originated as a Roivant spinout and now operates as a fully independent company.
“PsiThera has integrated predictive computational power, biophysics, mechanistic biology, and drug hunter expertise into a continuous feedback loop. The company is designed to bring the best computational tools to bear on the rate-limiting problems for difficult small molecule targets,” Shaff said.
“The four-month advancement of our lead programme from identification of a novel chemical scaffold hit to lead optimisation illustrates how efficiently our discovery engine operates and its potential to accelerate bringing new therapeutics to patients. With the support of our investors and deep expertise across the team, PsiThera will further scale our approach and expand the boundaries of what oral medicines can deliver, addressing high-value targets in a novel manner.”
The company’s QUAISAR computational intelligence platform — originating from Dr Woody Sherman’s founding role at Silicon Therapeutics and refined over years at Roivant Discovery — leverages quantum chemistry, molecular dynamics, machine learning, and supercomputing to model how proteins and drugs behave in biological environments. PsiThera’s discovery ecosystem unites experts in structural biophysics, mechanistic biology, and computational modelling to optimise oral drugs for clinically validated targets long-considered accessible only to biologics.
The company is advancing a pipeline of novel therapeutics designed to modulate high-value targets, with initial programmes focused on the tumour necrosis factor (TNF) superfamily. PsiThera’s platform enabled rapid cycle times, moving from hit identification to lead optimisation in four months, underscoring its ability to translate complex physics and AI insights into actionable design decisions.
Woody Sherman, founder and chief innovation officer, said: “Traditional drug discovery approaches have significant limitations when it comes to challenging targets where molecular motion plays a pivotal role. The fusion of our proprietary predictive computational models and human feedback from drug hunters with deep domain expertise accelerates the discovery of new drugs with optimised properties and the potential for superior efficacy.”
Jim Cornall is editor of Deeptech Digest and publisher at Ayr Coastal Media. He is an award-winning writer, editor, photographer, broadcaster, designer and author. Contact Jim here.