Jen Andre 
- Portfolio News
- 21 November, 2024
The biotechnology company pioneering next-generation precision immunomodulators and oncology medicines today announced the acquisition of Balderton portfolio company, Rahko.
Rahko was founded in 2018 by Leonard Wossnig, Ph.D., Edward Grant, Ph.D., Miriam Cha, and Ian Horobin. Balderton first led the company’s £1.3M Seed round in October 2019. You can read our Partner Colin Hanna’s thinking behind the investment here.Rahko is a leading quantum machine learning company, which will add powerful new tools to Odyssey‘s discovery platform to enable faster and more efficient drug discovery.
Rahko’s powerful platform will play a direct role in identifying the best leads for our targets with unprecedented speed and accuracy, assisting with our efforts to address the undruggable genome with the goal of delivering transformational impact for patients with inflammatory diseases and cancer in record time.
Gary D. Glick, Ph.D Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Odyssey Therapeutics
Three of Rahko’s-co-founders, Leonard Wossnig, Miriam Cha and Edward Grant.
Rahko has built a quantum drug discovery platform that brings together three key technologies-computational chemistry, machine learning, and quantum computing-to drive a better understanding of the behavior of drugs.The quantum machine learning models in Rahko’s platform combine physics and machine learning, enabling faster and better chemical simulations, systematic limitation of prediction errors, and reduction of the amount of data required to create models. The dynamics of these proteins are explored using physics-based simulation methods that uncover novel binding sites such as cryptic pockets. This information is combined with structure-based generative machine learning methods to generate novel molecular candidates to rapidly start programs with the best possible chemistry. Odyssey is also combining Rahko’s quantum machine learning methods with functional genomics and other omics data to identify novel targets.
Since Rahko’s founding, we have focused on removing key bottlenecks in drug discovery using quantum machine learning descriptors and models for best-in-class lead identification and optimization of drug candidates. The current renaissance in medicinal chemistry, new drug discovery technologies, and an expanded understanding of the drivers of immune dysfunction and cancer represent precisely the kind of unprecedented opportunity our platform was designed to maximize.
Since Rahko’s founding, we have focused on removing key bottlenecks in drug discovery using quantum machine learning descriptors and models for best-in-class lead identification and optimization of drug candidates. The current renaissance in medicinal chemistry, new drug discovery technologies, and an expanded understanding of the drivers of immune dysfunction and cancer represent precisely the kind of unprecedented opportunity our platform was designed to maximize.
Leonard Wossnig, Ph.D., Co-Founder and former Chief Executive Officer of Rahko, now Vice President of artificial intelligence at Odyssey Therapeutics
The Rahko team at the Balderton offices.
