Montreal-based biotechnology startup Congruence Therapeutics has secured $50 million in Series A financing. The round was led by Amplitude Ventures and Fonds de solidarité FTQ, with participation from Lumira Ventures, Investissement Quebec, OrbiMed Advisors, Driehaus Capital Management and others. Founded by serial entrepreneur Clarissa Desjardins, Congruence’s platform targets diseases of protein misfolding.
PRESS RELEASE
MONTREAL, Feb. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Congruence Therapeutics, a biotechnology company working at the interface of computational and experimental drug discovery to design novel small molecules for diseases of protein misfolding, announced today the closing of a US$50 million, tranched, series A financing. The financing was led by Amplitude Ventures and Fonds de solidarité FTQ, with participation from Lumira Ventures, Investissement Quebec, OrbiMed Advisors, Driehaus Capital Management, and others.
“Our industry faces a watershed moment where the application of novel computational tools, including machine learning, is poised to disrupt traditional drug discovery,” commented Dr. Clarissa Desjardins. “Our proprietary computational platform, Revenir™, has already demonstrated its ability to uncover novel biophysical features of certain proteins that underpin disease. This financing will allow us to build out a world-class team of ‘drug hunters’ to efficiently design novel small molecules for rare diseases of high unmet medical need, and progress them toward and into the clinic. We are grateful for the strong commitment provided by our syndicate of investors.”
“We are delighted to back Clarissa and the Congruence team as we see the potential of computational approaches to design better drugs faster,” said Nancy Harrison, Venture Partner at Amplitude Ventures.
David Bonita, MD, General Partner of OrbiMed Advisors commented, “We are pleased to support this experienced team and their unique computational tools toward the goal of developing novel, next-generation pharmacological stabilizers, a well validated and commercially successful class of drugs for rare diseases.”
The cornerstone of the Congruence strategy is its proprietary computational platform, Revenir™, a tool for the rational design of stabilizers that circumvents the target validation, protein purification, high throughput screening and hit triage stages. This purpose-built technology uses mathematical modeling, physics, and machine learning to characterize the biophysical defects of misfolded proteins that cause disease, then designs compounds to rescue the mutated proteins by correcting these defects in silico. Congruence is currently deploying Revenir™ in indications with high unmet medical need. At the same time, the Company is building a proprietary database containing the biophysical properties of mutant proteins, which can be used to develop stabilizers for diseases caused by protein families outside of the Company’s current focus.
Congruence Therapeutics was founded in 2021 by Clarissa Desjardins, Ph.D., previously the founder and chief executive officer of Clementia Pharmaceuticals, a company developing therapies for rare pediatric bone diseases and sold to Ipsen in early 2019 for US$1.3 billion. Clementia’s lead product, Sohonos™ (palovarotene), was recently approved in Canada and is under review at the FDA as the first treatment for Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva, a debilitating and progressive rare bone disorder. At Congruence, Dr. Desjardins has put into place a team of ‘drug hunters’ with domain experience in rare disease strategy and clinical development, computational chemistry, medicinal chemistry, and business development.
Concurrent with the financing, Kenneth J. Valenzano, Ph.D. has joined the company as Chief Scientific Officer. Dr. Valenzano most recently served as Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery for Amicus Therapeutics, a leading company historically focused on pharmacological chaperones to treat human genetic diseases. Dr. Valenzano participated in the discovery and development of several small molecule chaperones including Galafold™ (migalastat), the first and only orally-available, small molecule treatment for Fabry’s Disease approved in Europe and in the US in 2018.
About Congruence Therapeutics
Congruence Therapeutics is a biotechnology company working at the interface of computational and experimental drug discovery to design novel small molecules for diseases of protein misfolding. Using structural bioinformatics, computational chemistry, and machine learning, the Company is deploying an in silico platform that enables the design of new pharmacological stabilizers, a validated class of small molecules, at an unprecedented speed and scale.
