Bill Gates and Schrödinger co-founder invest in Nimbus to advance large B-cell lymphoma programs

Nimbus Discovery LLC, a biopharmaceutical company using state-of the-art computational technology to discover novel medicines against exciting but difficult-to-drug disease targets, today announced an extension of its seed round with an investment by Bill Gates and Dr. Richard Friesner, the co-founder of Schrödinger and Professor of Chemistry at Columbia University. Atlas Venture, the founding investor, also participated.

"I am excited to welcome Bill Gates and Richard Friesner as investors in Nimbus", said Dr. Bruce Booth, Chairman and co-founder of Nimbus and a Partner at Atlas Venture. "Their investment recognizes the unique opportunity Nimbus has to leverage Schrödinger's 20-year technology investment with a virtually-integrated, globally distributed R&D approach." The Nimbus financing follows a $10MM investment by Bill Gates in Schrödinger to accelerate R&D efforts.

The funds will be used to advance Nimbus' lead programs in diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, an aggressive blood cancer, inflammatory disorders, and metabolic disease. Nimbus is targeting proteins that are pivotal for disease progression including IRAK4, a signaling kinase that becomes inappropriately activated in lymphoma and inflammation, and ACC, a metabolic enzyme that controls the synthesis and burning of fat. While traditional chemistry approaches have failed to develop medicines for these targets, the Nimbus team has generated selective, potent, and differentiated compounds within its first year. Over the next 12-18 months, Nimbus will refine clinical candidates for these targets and will expand its pipeline to include a new series of important targets.

The Nimbus pipeline is the product of a successful strategic partnership with Schrödinger, the leader in chemical simulation and in silico drug discovery, that grants Nimbus privileged access to leading-edge technology, including next-generation WaterMap^TM and related technologies, and exclusive rights to key targets. Under the terms of the agreement established in 2010, Nimbus receives exclusive use of customized software packages developed by Schrödinger for these targets, access to a dedicated team of Schrödinger computational chemists and unlimited use of cloud computing resources. Schrödinger has a material equity stake in Nimbus and will receive a series of success-driven milestone payments.

Nimbus has assembled a team with deep drug-discovery experience including Rosana Kapeller MD, PhD, co-founder of Aileron Therapeutics (Chief Scientific Officer); Jonathan Montagu, formerly Concert Pharmaceuticals Business Development (Vice President, Business Operations); Bruce Booth, PhD, Partner at Atlas Venture (Director); Vicki Sato, PhD, former President of Vertex Pharmaceuticals (Director); and Ramy Farid, PhD, co-founder of Nimbus Discovery and President of Schrödinger (Director).