Three Seattle-area biotech startups are on the rise, according to venture capital firms placing their bets on who will be taking off over the next year.
Seattle-based A-Alpha Bio has raised $23 million to advance its platform that uses machine learning to run tests on how a potential new drug interacts with a wide range of proteins.
“They’re not reliant on the old, binary nature of a drug-development program,” said Chris Garabedian, venture portfolio manager at Perceptive Advisors, when referring to the lengthy and expensive process of bringing an experimental drug through clinical studies. “We’re investing more in companies that can generate revenue and that can do partnerships. A-Alpha hits that perfectly.”
Affini-T Therapeutics is focused on hard-to-treat cancers through improved therapies using patient’s T cells and has raised $175 million in funding since its start in 2020. The company has been called “the next frontier in cell therapy” by investors.
Shape Therapeutics was founded in 2018 and applies artificial intelligence to find new RNA medicines and create better ways to deliver them into the human body. They have plans to treat both rare genetic diseases as well as more common illnesses, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.